Living Charmed
by Kokoro E. Junnaya
Summary: Charmed life is never boring. Whether you're facing the peril of witch hunters, ago old warlocks, or your family's horrible surprise parties, you know you'll never lack for drama. Frankly, Chris would rather face the hunters...and he's about to. With time demons, the threat of exposure, and an actually deadly scheme, will Chris survive his 17th birthday? Changed Future.
1. The Beginning

**A/N: **Hello, all. I've wanted to do a Charmed fic for a long time, but I've always put off on it because I have so many other fics that aren't complete.

...Yes, I know that hasn't really changed. But I needed a break from writing Yugioh for a while, and so, this fic was _born..._

**First - in this fic we are assuming that Future Chris's soul merged with baby Chris, only once Piper found out, she realized that he couldn't deal with the memories at such a young age and blocked them with a spell. **

**Second - Bianca. Ignore the whole Bianca-being-six-years-older-than-Chris thing. I hate it. I mean, I understand why they did it, but I don't like it, so I'm just kinda, uh, shunning that particular part of cannon. Please shun it with me. ^^**

**Summary: **Charmed life is never boring. Whether you're facing the peril of witch hunters, ago old warlocks, or your family's horrible surprise parties, you know you'll never lack for drama. Frankly, Chris would rather face the demons or hunters...and he's about to.  
With time demons, the threat of exposure, and an actually deadly scheme, will Chris survive his 17th birthday? Warning! Chris x Bianca Changed Future.

**Disclaimer - The very handsome Chris doesn't belong to me, and neither does the show Charmed. And if that's not enough to make you depressed...****  
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**XD  
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Prologue

Kidnapped, strapped to a chair, about to be injected with something he was fairly certain was 'not good' and unable to stop it, Christopher Perry Halliwell finally decided he was having a bad day.

He'd tried, really tried to not let anything get him down. The moment he had woken up that morning, he had promised himself it was going to be a good day; stuffed full of puppies and rainbows. Unfortunately for him, he was a Halliwell. And he had the luck that came with the name.

Normally it was his brother, Wyatt, who was the optimistic one, and Chris was just the 'realist' with the sarcastic commentary. He liked that.

But not today, nuh-uh, no way. He was determined that nothing would mess it up, determined to be happy. Because every year he was told he became 'all sulky' and 'no fun'; this time it would be different. Really, he should have known something was going to happen from the moment he had determined that. It always did on this day; his birthday. The long standing tradition of having no fun on said day seemed to be holding, though this was despite all his best efforts. He was – right now – having no fun, and mentally sulking.

_So much for that._ He thought, staring in fear at the needle descending on his arm. He struggled violently to free himself from his bonds – not that he got anywhere with that.

"No! Stop! No, you can't do this!" He yelled, feeling a familiar sting as the needle sunk into his skin. They didn't seem to care about his screams. It felt deeper than necessary, and Chris winced, trying in vain to move away.

Slowly, a dizzy sensation spread throughout his body. He was so tired. The world around him was darkening.

_No, I can't sleep. I have to leave...Mom will worry..._ He tried to argue to himself, his eyes closing. Chris tried to fight it, as he'd fought so many demons and potions and spells before, but it wasn't something he could. Soon, a soft snore emerged from his relaxed form.

The two men standing above the boy grinned down in victory.

"Let's go tell the boss – we caught ourselves a witch."

* * *

**A/N: I've been taking cliffhanger classes. May I ask, are they paying off? *Snickers* (Which incidentally, was so fun, they made a candybar out of it. XD...haha gotta love snickers)  
**

**So anyways...****  
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**Review and fav please!****  
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	2. Surprise, Surprise

**Yeah! First chapter of my first Charmed fanfiction. :D I hope my characterization was alright. **

**Edited: 4/19/13**

**Reviews: **Thanks to the lovely chawk1993 for reviewing, faving, _AND_ following (I am crying happy tears right now XD *sniff sniff*), and to the both equally as lovely VVAgirl and Rubes99 for taking the time to read and to follow.

**Summary: **Charmed life is never boring. Whether you're facing the peril of witch hunters, ago old warlocks, or your family's horrible surprise parties, you know you'll never lack for drama. Frankly, Chris would rather face the demons or hunters...and he's about to.  
With time demons, the threat of exposure, and an actually deadly scheme, will Chris survive his 17th birthday? Warning! Chris x Bianca Changed Future.

**Disclaimer: **Charmed does not belong to me!

* * *

November 16, 2021

3:37 PM

You'd be surprised how many surprises are the bad kind, unless you happen to enjoy surprise birthday parties – then the number of bad surprises would be considerably less. But if you do like them, it means that you've never truly experienced a Halliwell party and can't say (without getting TK'd across the room) that some surprises are actually good.

Oh, sure, they _sound_ fun – but underneath the surface they're merely an acceptable pretense for your family to catch you off guard and humiliate you when you're least expecting it.

This was Chris's theory. So far, he had seen no evidence to the contrary.

"Wyatt, I don't even like _cake_." He said wearily, rubbing his temples. The two were in the attic – Chris draped comfortably over the Book of Shadows, Wyatt stirring a rather temperamental vanquishing potion – having an old discussion about Chris's birthday. Which was that very night.

The twice blessed snorted, adding a pinch of rosemary

to the mix.

"I still don't believe you. Everyone likes cake – even evil demons from the underworld."

Chris paused, tapping his chin in thought.

"Hmm... 'Evil demons from the underworld'? Isn't that a bit redundant?" He wondered, flipping telekinetically through the Book of Shadows' pages.

Wyatt rolled his eyes. He refused to take the bait.

"Nice try, Chris. But no. Can't change the subject." He said with a grin. "You're going to have to be there, you know. You'll have to show up and act _genuinely_ surprised."  
"Woah, Wy. That's asking a lot."

Wyatt sighed, shaking his head as he stepped back to toss in the final ingredient.

"I know. Your life is _so_ hard."

There was a small boom, which the both of them ignored like the long time witches they were.

"But it's_ my_ birthday! Can't you just...call it all off? Please? Just this year?" Chris pleaded.

"Vial." Wyatt demanded, hand outstretched. Two seconds later, Chris had TK'd one right into his brother's palm.

With a sigh, Wyatt began to fill up the vial with the potion, squinting at it carefully to be sure it was the correct color and correct amount. Finally, he finished and responded to Chris's begging.

"No, Chris. I'm afraid you really can't get out of this one. After the demon attack last year, Mom has kinda lost it. I guess she's determined that this one go smoothly. Boy, I pity any demon who messes with her in this mood."

Both boys shivered unconsciously, thinking of Piper Halliwell angry. Not a pleasant thought.

"Mom will also blow you up if you don't come." He added.  
The younger of the brothers buried his face into the Book and uttered a long and dramatic groan that Wyatt chose to think of as 'Yes, of course I'll come, Wy, my great and awesome big brother.'.

"'Sides," He said. "This year it could be fun. You could even try to not be all sulky and..." He paused, searching for the right word. He gave up quickly, settling instead for two. "..._not_ fun."

Chris's head shot up out of the Book.

"Hey! I am tons of fun!"

Wyatt lifted an eyebrow at him, setting the finished potion down on the table.

"...Just...not on my birthday." The brown-haired boy muttered.

Wyatt nodded triumphantly, saying, "That's_ right_. Now where are you going to be, tonight at five?"  
Chris murmured something that sounded vaguely like, "Searching for my dignity?" but rolled his eyes when Wyatt shot him a glare.

"At P3. For whatever lame excuse you gave to get me there."

Again, Wyatt nodded happily.

"Geez, don't sound too excited now, Chrissy."

In reply he got a book chucked at his face. He ducked, laughing. Then he was hit by a couch pillow in the face and crumpled dramatically to the floor.

"Whoops." Chris said lazily as he stared at his fallen brother. "My telekinesis powers must have slipped. "

"Hey!" Wyatt growled. Fairly soon, a war started between the two; consisting of pillows, books, and unfortunately, very conveniently placed boxes. After awhile, the childish fight was ended by their younger but more mature sister Melinda when she barged unto the war scene by accident.

"You guys are like big toddlers." She informed them. Then she shook her head sadly, turned, and walked back down the stairs.

The boys, in unison, both stuck their tongues out at the empty air where Mel had stood, as if that proved differently.

To all who lived there it had seemed like a perfectly normal, slightly magical day (but what day isn't?) for all the Halliwell residence. In retrospect, that really should've been their first clue.

* * *

4:14 PM

Piper Halliwell bit her lip in thought, glaring impatiently up at the decorations. If possible, they seemed to shrink back in response as if terrified she might blow them up in a fit of anger. They were right to do so. For today was not simply any old day, with any old normally – er, _fairly_ – calm Piper; today was one of those days where you learned just how Chris had still become neurotic, even in the good, changed future.

Everything had to be _perfect_. This sentence was quickly becoming her mantra of the day. After three years of emergencies, demon attacks, and last-minute conflicting plans, she was determined that Chris's seventeenth birthday go smoothly.

Call her what you would; neurotic, crazy, or just plain stubborn, but she was going to have a nice, normal party, with nice, normal, _perfect_ decorations. Even if she had to murder her entire family to do it.

"Leo, do you think we need more decorations? A few more streamers, maybe a couple more balloons?" She asked her husband absently, staring at the empty P3 room around them. He was carrying cake, ice cream, pizza, beer (for the adults) and – if he had remembered – a present for his second son.  
With a groan, he set the heavy sacks of items down on the bar and went to stand next to her, gazing at the many, many decorations.

"I...really think it's good, Piper." He said, thinking to himself that if anything, they could use _less_ decorations.

"Are you sure? I don't know, I think.." She trailed off, twisting her mouth to the side in thought.

Leo knew how much Chris disliked being the center of attention and outright despised parties, especially his own. However, he wasn't a stupid man – he hadn't told Piper any of this. Being a husband for as long as he had with the strong, fierce Charmed One had taught him a thing or two about how to phrase things around her. And how to get her to stop obsessing.

Wrapping an arm around her slight shoulders, he pulled her closer to him, despite her initial scowl in reply.

"It's perfect, Piper." He told her gently, smiling down at her beautifully annoyed face.

With a sigh, she rolled her eyes at him – but he knew she wasn't mad anymore. She was just worried, which was what Pipers did best.

Leo leaned down and placed a kiss on her lips, and she responded in kind; he noted her large grin interrupting the kiss as she did so.

After a long, blissful minute they broke apart. Piper playfully hit him on his chest, stepping back a little.

"Stop that, mister!" She scowled, though her expression was undermined by the smile still playing at her lips. "I still have to call Phoebe and Paige!"

The blond ex-whitelighter couldn't help but grin down at the woman he loved, and tug her back to his heart. She had to laugh, stumbling back to him willingly. It was alright. She'd always belonged there, anyway.

* * *

6:52 PM

Prudence Melinda Halliwell, or, for all intents and purposes, 'Mel', trudged down the stairs of Halliwell Manor slowly, feeling an enormous sigh bubbling to the surface. With her mother's long, dark brown hair, only curled like her brother's, delicate cheekbones, and warm brown eyes, it wasn't surprising that she'd been called a 'mini Piper' before, even by the woman herself. But despite her uncanny resemblance to her mother, she didn't possess the same personality. Less worrying, obsessing, and wanting a normal life – she was more laid back, passive, and tended to go with the flow of things. It had also been said she acted more like her late Aunt Prue, but she had never, even for a moment, thought of herself as courageous, or strong, or powerful; not like Prue had certainly been.

Still, in a family full of worry warts, she considered herself lucky not to have gotten that particular gene. Especially since the Halliwell's were a bit...well..._worrisome_.

Melinda tucked a runaway strand behind her ear, finally letting out her sigh as she passed through the living room, and the parlor, loping reluctantly all the way to the front door. If she were a worrier, which she wasn't, she'd have been concerned about the way her mother seemed to be getting a little too, um, 'enthusiastic' about Chris's party. Which is to say – obsessed. Majorly.

She didn't bother to glance at the clock on her way out, which, reading 6:05, would have told her she was late.

"Dad?" She called behind her, hand on the front door knob. "We have to go! We'll be late, and Mom has been seriously twitchy lately. Come on!"

There was no answer. In her dreary, self-pitying state of moaning to herself that she could've been having fun on a Friday night, instead of doing something lame, she hadn't noticed how her usually bustling house was...quiet.

Piper was already at P3, and Wyatt was supposed to be convincing Chris to go there with him on inconspicuous reasons – although she supposed she could've lost track of time. That could've already happened. A look at the clock proved this theory, unfortunately, correct.

But, shouldn't Leo still be there? Shouldn't he have come back to pick her up?

"Dad?" She yelled. She paused, listening to the silent ticking of their much worn grandfather clock. "Dad?...You're not here, are you?"

Melinda poked her head out of the door to note there were exactly zero cars in front of her house. Leo was long gone. With a large sigh, she withdrew her head and rolled her eyes. It wasn't particularly shocking or surprising to see they had actually forgotten about her on this very, _very_ busy night, but it was mildly upsetting nonetheless.

"Great." She muttered. "Just great." Now what should she do?

Although she could've easily orbed to P3, she knew Piper or/and Leo would chastise her for it and give her the whole 'personal gain' speech, _again_. Then she would argue and complain that they left her at home, and what was she supposed to do? And it would become a fight, thus ruining Chris's birthday – not that he would mind, she was sure – but Piper would be upset and...

"Aren't I the drama queen?" She remarked with a wry smile at herself at her imaginary spectacle. It was one of her specialties; a perk of being a teenage girl.

She would probably get out of the party, should the scenario above happen exactly as predicted. And seeing how Melinda had premonitions, she was fairly good at predicting the future. But she could also simply not go to the club, which meant no arguing at all, and still not have to attend the party. Hm...what to do?

"You know what." She said excitedly, ignoring the fact that she was speaking to herself. Like crazy people do.

"I could just _skip _the whole thing. Yeah. Mom wouldn't notice, at least not tonight, what with the whole obsessed thing she's got going on, and I could actually _enjoy _my evening."

_What kind of sister skips out on her big brother's birthday?_ Her conscience whispered to her. But she merely flapped a hand at it and rolled her eyes. She knew her brother would hate the party, whether she appeared or not. Besides, she had already given him her gift; so they were, as far as she was concerned, cool.

"Okay." She decided, shutting the front door and locking it with a click. "Step one – punish Mom and Dad for completely forgetting about me by _not _going to P3. Check."

Although she wasn't as melodramatic as other teenage girls could be, what with the great, magical responsibility resting on her shoulders and all, that didn't mean she couldn't be petty and pretend to be.

Grinning, she strode back through the parlor, the living room, and to the tv, promptly plopping herself down on the couch and picking up the remote.

"Step two – have fun by doing absolutely nothing for the rest of the night. Check." She smiled, setting her feet up on the coffee table comfortably.

Suddenly a cold, snarling voice spoke up from behind her.

"Step three – _die_."

* * *

In a poorly lit room, filled with monitors and computers and keyboards, a tall, pale man squinted at a particular image on a particular monitor. It was a boy – a teenager with messy brown hair and a scowl, a dark backpack slung over his shoulder. Another monitor showed a repeating video of the same boy, only getting into a fight with a strange man. The boy was impressive – ducking, rolling, and evading the attackers punches with experienced ease – but the man was clearly stronger and better. Soon, the boy was on the ground gasping for air, and the man jumped onto him, and it seemed over. Then he suddenly flew away and hit the wall of the alley; as if a great gust of wind had picked him up and carried him there.

The boy pulled out a small bottle, smashed it on the ground in front of him, and the man became dust. This video kept replaying over and over, the man kept dying mysteriously, and the boy kept winning – though the tall, pale man beside it paid little mind.

With an annoyed huff, he bent over his keyboard and his fingers began to dance upon the keys as though they pressed ivory, and not plastic ones.

"I will find you..." He whispered, his voice hoarse and cold. His black eyes seemed to go on forever, filled to the brim with emptiness, and held a strange sort of thrilled gleam to them. He all but stroked the computer screen lovingly. "You can't hide forever."

The body guards next to him didn't even blink. They stared soullessly ahead as their master worked, and slaved, and barely noticed when he finally straightened, a new glimmer in his eyes. In his hands he held a paper, newly printed from his machine, with a long searched for address.

_1329 Prescott Street..._

The man was so focused on what was in his hands that he didn't see a pair of red eyes grinning victoriously at him from the shadows. It never occurred to him someone could be observing the observer. However, they soon faded from view, and disappeared.

* * *

**A/N: Thanks for reading! I'd appreciate it if you could tell me what you think by reviewing! See you next time - which should be eh... a week. At most two. I promise not to leave this story abandoned, that would just be mean. **

**Since this is my first Charmed fic, this is also the first fic where I've had to come up with an elaborate demon plot. Ugh. It was hard. But guess what? It means I've actually planned this story out, and I'm not simply making it up as I go along. That's pretty exciting for me. I almost feel like...dare I say it?...a REAL WRITER! ****  
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**Chris: XD Hahahahaha! A real writer? Bahahaha! Oh, you crack me up, Kokoro. *Wipes tears from eyes* Haha...ah. That's great. ****  
**

**Kokoro: *Sniffle* That didn't hurt. At all... *runs away sobbing*****  
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**Lol. ****See ya next time!  
**


	3. Oh, The Humanity

Oh my gosh, guys! I am so sorry it took this long! I had gotten half way through this chapter and completely hated it, so I had to go back, then I wanted to go a totally different way with the chapters and...a-anyway.

***sigh* **I should really be working on chemistry right now, but this is too much fun XD

Please forgive the chapter name. I'm horrible at naming stuff.

**Reviews:  
**

**ToRuin: **I think I could marry you! That was probably the sweetest review I've gotten _ever_! You made me want to work extra hard on this story. Thanks a million. I hope you keep reading and reviewing, cause you are _awesome_!

**Paulie: **Thanks for your review! I'm sorry, after re-reading that bit I did feel like Melinda was sorta out-of-character. Nevertheless, she is a character. I suppose you've never heard of the Charmed comics? She's most definitely in them and is generally accepted as Piper's cannon daughter. I hope you still manage to keep reading and enjoy my story.

Also, bunches of thank you's to mimim1010, Bad-Kitty-Kill, and darcie-magicae-anima for faving and following and such. Please keep reading!

_This first bit takes place hours after the first chapter, prologue thingy. Good to know, right?**  
**_

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November 16, 2021  


10:30 PM

It was darker than pitch. If pitch was darker than deep space, then it would be even darker than that. A wrong sort of dark, too – not the calm, serene blanket of nothing that usually surrounded him. This blackness was cold, cruel, and sharp pain shot at him from every angle of it. No, this was not something good.

It was also unfathomably uncomfortable.

A hoarse, cough of a moan shocked him when it reached his ears. If he had been in full control of his faculties, he would've jumped in surprise and sat up. As it was...he, er, _wasn't_. That had been his cough, he noted, slowly lifting himself out of the darkness. Why had he made a noise like that?

Alarm bells began to sound in his mind as he tested first his hands, fingers, then his legs and toes – all of which horrifyingly failed to respond – and finally, reluctantly, his eyes. Thankfully they forced themselves open for him. Maybe he should've been more concerned that he couldn't move anything else, but panic was making it impossible for him to think clearly. Or to remember anything.

Should he remember something? Well, he was supposed to be in bed, right? Finally his eyelids fluttered open.

Harsh light all but seared into his bleary eyes, eliciting a good wince and another groan from him. Alright. Ow. He thought wearily, worry growing when he tried (key word being '_tried_') to rub his eyes to ease the pain. He squeezed them shut again, instead, but unfortunately the damage was done – and his head was now pounding faster than a drum set, making it even harder to think straight.

Let's try my hands again. He decided after a good, _long_ moment of pain. To his glee, he discovered he could slowly curl his fingers back and forth, and the same with his toes, though those were of course hampered by his shoes.

Of course, because Christopher Halliwell _always_ wore his shoes to bed...only he didn't. It would've required a phenomenal amount of exhaustion and/or alcohol to make him forget to take his shoes off. Have you every tried to sleep with those things on? It was really stinking hard!  
So...why would he do that? Why couldn't he move his arms? Why was everything so wrong?!

In a brief, but petrifying moment, he struggled violently to rise; it certainly didn't help matters that he found himself unable to. He wrenched his eyes open, never mind his headache, and screamed when he saw the scene around him.

The reason he couldn't sit up? He was strapped down. To what scarily resembled an operating table, with needles, knives, and scissors laying on the tray next to him.

The memories crashed back into his terrified brain – the store, the fight, the two men he hadn't seen, being dragged here, watching them inject him with needles, then the words he'd barely heard as he had slipped in to unconsciousness; "– We caught ourselves a witch."

Suddenly he shut his mouth as his eyes widened in realization. He remembered. He remembered what had happened.

He remembered that these people... were _humans._

Scanning the wall showed him what he'd been afraid of; security cameras. So assuming he could shake off whatever drug they gave him enough to use his powers, they would only catch it on tape and expose magic. That would alert the Cleaners, who from Piper's stories, seemed like they would erase him from history just as soon as erasing any video tape.

Oh, no. This was very, very bad. Horribly, awfully bad. The worst kind of bad ever – only _worse_!

He realized he was breathing hard. He shut his eyes and tried to calm down as he reevaluated his situation.

Alrighty, he had been kidnapped by humans who somehow knew his secret. If he knew they already had proof, he could try to access his powers and just leave. Awesome.

Problem number one – he didn't know what they knew. Should he really risk exposure if they didn't already have proof? If they were in the dark, then he should keep it that way and attempt to escape using other methods, which he could totally come up with. Because he was brilliant.  
The part of his brain that sounded like Wyatt snapped smugly, _If you're so brilliant, how come you got yourself kidnapped? Hmm? _

But Chris chose to ignore this and resisted the urge to tell himself to shut up, since nothing productive would come of it.

Problem number two – he was still feeling off. Imagining he had enough room to flex his wrist, and could aim properly, would anything more than his fingers twitching actually happen? Whatever drug they gave him definitely packed a punch. He was still dizzy from it. If he could've gotten up, he was sure he would've collapsed on the floor. Ungracefully, too.

Problem number three, and this one was probably the most pressing one – they were coming back in.

"No, no, no!" Chris yelled, pushing himself against the restraints until the thick leather straps dug into his skin. This was the second time this had occurred, and it only made it more frightening. The feeling of hopelessness, helplessness, powerless; it was something everyone dreaded.

Soon, fear took over his brain and forced him to reach for his magic – logic and Cleaners be damned! – flicking his fingers as much as possible as the two men reentering the room. Unfortunately nothing happened. The men were still approaching and he was still strapped down.

"Please don't do this." He choked out, even as he strained for freedom. They acted they couldn't hear his broken pleas, and the taller man simply picked up a syringe from the side table. With a manic grin he gestured to the other two to hold him down, and even as Chris's struggles continued, his brain was finally coming back to him. He was fighting, panicking, but a small portion of his mind whispered hope into his ear; Wyatt. Maybe it wasn't safe to call out loud, but Chris didn't need words.

Every since they were children, Wyatt had been there, had heard him. Even when he spoke inside his head. His older brother had responded to his pleas from the deepest pits of the Underworld, had come to him when Chris had temporarily lost his powers, and Wyatt had saved his life when a demon made him mute. Nothing had ever interfered when Chris called, inside his head, with such intensity. Nothing. His big brother could _always _hear him. Always.

So even as their cold hands pinned him down and rolled up his sleeve, even as the needle bit into him, _again_, and even as he slipped back into that foggy, slow-as-molasseses river that was drug induced unconsciousness – a tiny part of him was perfectly calm. Serene, you might say.

_Wyatt._ He called, eyes fluttering shut. _Wy...Wyatt..._

"Wyatt..." He whispered one last time, not even realizing it. Then he was gone.

The man with the needle exchanged glances with the two burly ones, and they reluctantly let go of the sleeping boy.

"Well, that certainly was very fast." He snapped at them, clanging the now empty needle onto the tray with more force than necessary. It made a loud BANG! but the others ignored it.

The shortest of the three held up his hands and placed an innocent expression on his face.

"Hey, don't look at me, pal!" He said defensively. "It was supposed to knock him out for twelve hours!"

"And yet it's only been _three_!" The tall man seethed.

"Technically it was three and a half –"

"Oh, shut up!"

The middle one, who had yet to offer his opinion finally opened his mouth, with a frown as he did so.

"The boss will want to be informed of this, and the blood tests when he gets back." The man rumbled.

With a large sigh, the tall blond rolled his eyes and began to trudge out of the small room. The other two followed, after sharing a knowing glance at each other over his theatrics.

"I still can't believe he was right. And that he hasn't returned yet." He complained, much like a child. "Doesn't he know we need to do this _quickly_? We really need to get moving, before the police get involved."

"Police? Please!" The short man snorted. "He's not even human!"

Suddenly all three let out a dark, disturbing laugh, their eyes glinting strangely. It was as if they thought of the boy lying in the next room as some rabid animal.

"Of course _it's_ not." Tall one chuckled. "'Human?' Ha! _It's_ not even an animal. It's just a monster."

Abruptly, but naturally to him and his colleagues, as if the two subjects went hand in hand, he piped up, "Coffee?"

The two expressed their enthusiastic agreement and, with a last glare at the 'thing' they now possessed, they slammed the door shut, and locked it.

"I prefer mine black, if you will."

"Oh, like _I'm_ getting _you _coffee! What am I – your secretary?"

"Oh, please!"

It never occurred to any of them that they were wrong. That the witch they had unlawfully kidnapped was more human than they could ever hope to be. But then, they probably wouldn't have cared.

* * *

**A/N: I've decided to kind of go back and forth from the past to the present (or the present to the future, if you want to look at it that way) with the chapters. So...yeah. It'll be a little confusing...at first...maybe forever. **

**OKAY I'M SORRY! **

**Ahem. **

**Well, the next chapter will be how this happened, and maybe I'll even get to confuse you some more by adding another villain! How does that sound? **

**See ya in a week or two! **


	4. Patience and Promises

You guys are so awesome, thanks for reviewing some more! It really makes my day. Or night. Anyway..

**Edited: 7/08/13**

Thanks to nevtanis, locksleylass, Naie Black, and Silver-Fairy0101 for reading and faving/following!

Special thanks - and a bundle of roses each - goes to Rubes99 and darcie-magicae-anima! *pushes clapping sound effect* Yay!

Every one of you is made of awesome. ^^

**Also - the girl way way below is cannon! NOT an OC! I promise!**

**Disclaimer - ***sigh* Is this really needed anymore? Well, Charmed doesn't belong to me...

* * *

Seventeen years ago...

_Wyatt was all alone. He hated being alone. He had a large family – two crazy aunts, a mother and a father, an awesome grandfather, a dead great-grandmother, an Aunt Shelia and Uncle Daryl, and a strange man he'd finally decided was okay. But still, he was often alone. His mother was always busy, busy, busy, fighting some bad man or some such, and his father...his father had to go save the world. He didn't understand any of it, really; only that it meant he was alone most of the time. _

_But the strange man...Chris...liked to play with him. He had eyes like his daddy, and a face like his mommy. At first he'd been mean. Angry, yelling a lot, and frowning at him. Wyatt hadn't liked that. _

_Slowly, though, the man had began to smile, laugh, and spend time with him – but after he'd saved him from the bad men, that was the moment Wyatt knew he was good. He was family. _

_Then one day, when Wyatt was all by himself, waiting for his mommy – who'd gotten very fat lately – Chris came to him. _

_Wyatt was too young to understand what was happening, but he was clever, and knew the man was worried about something. What? What could it be that mommy couldn't make better? Mommy could fix anything! _

_Then there was a noise. A squeak – like a mouse! It was a door. It made Chris came over to Wyatt and he said something. Which, again, Wyatt couldn't comprehend the true meaning of at his age. _

_But then Gideon appeared. And he stabbed Chris, which really confused Wyatt. Gideon was a good man, and he was hurting Chris! What did that mean? What was going on?_

_Pretty soon Chris was on the floor and he wasn't moving. Wyatt was scared. What was he supposed to do? Should he put his shield up? Hide? Where was his mommy and daddy? His aunts? _

_Daddy appeared in his shimmery blue lights, like he always did, but suddenly Wyatt was in Gideon's arms, and daddy couldn't save him._

_That was the last time Wyatt saw Chris Perry. He didn't see the man bleed in agony for almost an hour, he didn't stare at his father as tears streamed down his face, and he certainly didn't watch as Chris faded away into nothing, as if he'd never existed. _

_No one would tell him where Chris went, only that he had 'gone away'. That didn't make any sense. When was the man coming back to play with him? He had to come back sometime, right? And yet he did not. He never returned. _

_And then mommy had a baby – his brother! – and she named him Chris, too. With a world of confusing concepts around him too difficult for his toddler brain to understand, threatening to make him burst into tears, strangely enough, one thing made sense._

_They told him that now that he had a sibling, he needed to take care of his little brother. So he did. _

_There was jealousy at first, because the baby had gotten all of _his _attention! It had been hard. Yet that faded with time, and so did the memories of Chris Perry. Wyatt might still recall a man, maybe one of the girls' boyfriends, maybe a neighbor, maybe a friend of Daryl's, but the name always alluded him. No face, either – simply a pair of green eyes, and a bundle of warm feelings._

_But he had never forgotten the job his parents had assigned him all those years ago. He'd never forgotten that he was supposed to take care of Chris – and he'd never let him down. _

_Not...until now. _

* * *

November 16, 2021

8:03 PM

As much as Phoebe Halliwell loved being a mother, a wife, and an advice columnist, some days it felt like she was one raw nerve away from going completely insane. Like on a day such as today – Chris's birthday. Standing in the large club she owned with her two sisters in a beautiful, sleeveless red dress with intricate lacing in the back, her hair up in a bun, and make up artfully blended onto her face, she may have looked perfect; but she felt like she was coming unhinged.

"Pandora, stop being mean to your sister!" She yelled to her youngest daughter from across the room, who pretended not to hear this. The girl was clearly provoking her older sister, Prudence Johanna, or PJ, into fighting back at her and with PJ's magical ability to 'beam' things, and people, anywhere she wanted – it wouldn't be good to make her angry. Especially not when Phoebe's big sister, Piper, seemed very much on edge as it was.  
Even though Piper had broken the tradition of 'P' names for the Halliwell children (not to mention the tradition of only having girls) Phoebe had decided to stick with it. After being rebellious for so long, it was almost... her way of apologizing to Grams, and it hadn't hurt to see the joy of the dead woman's face, either.

Phoebe glanced around at the party, and as she did, her sensitive ears easily picked up Piper's angry footsteps. It appeared Piper was obsessing again.

As her eyes traveled the room, she saw that her younger half-sister – considered a full one by all the Halliwell's – was quite the opposite that night, as one look told her the half-whitelighter had given up all pretenses of maturity and decided to be young and carefree again, leaving her rambunctious children to her husband. The empath was torn between feeling sorry for him and laughing as Henry tried to rush around from each one and stop them from stealing bits of the cake. Paige instead chatted eagerly with Billie and her new boyfriend, each holding a well-earned drink.

Phoebe paused on her way to grab Parker, her middle child, from joining their small cult of cake-worshipers (since Piper looked like she might actually blow her up) and squinted at the man by her friend Billie's side.

Short, dark complexion, and loud laugh. She had met him a few weeks ago with her husband and the moment upon doing so Coop had shaken his head sadly and whispered into her ear,

"He's really not the one."

As a columnist who specialized in love, Phoebe was definitely starting to see that her husband was correct. Well, he was a cupid, so _of course_ he was going to be right about dating.

"Coop was right." She murmured, watching the two of them interact. The chemistry was off: she clearly looked bored with his conversation, and he didn't seem to notice she would rather be somewhere else. How obvious was that?

"Who was right?" Asked a female voice from behind her, making Phoebe jump. The brunette whirled around to find Piper and smiled, relaxing, though the corner of her eye was still trained on her little demons, er, children.

"Oh, hi! Hey!" She greeted her, giving the older woman a big hug and kiss. Even though her family came over to the Manor every week, as did Paige's, Phoebe always felt like she never saw enough of her sisters anymore. Maybe it was the not living together thing. After years of living apart, it was still a little melancholy that they had moved on and away with their lives; change, while sometimes a good thing, meant goodbye. And goodbyes were always sad.

"How're things going?" She asked with a big grin, pulling back from the embrace.

"Oh, good." Piper smiled back, tucking an escaped dark strand behind her ear. "You know, the same mostly – _Phoebe_, what're we doing?"  
At her exasperated tone, Phoebe had to stifle a very large giggle, covering her mouth with her hand in what she hoped looked like a cough. As far as she could tell, she couldn't quite pull it off.  
"What do you mean?" She questioned innocently.

"Pheebs, we saw each other this morning!" Piper exclaimed with a roll of her eyes. "Demon vanquish? The guy with the hundreds of eyes? You remember?"

In a way only a sister could, Phoebe hooked an arm around Piper's shoulders, bumped their heads together lovingly, and laughed.  
"Yeah, yeah. I was just playing with you."

Piper pouted – a lovely mix of terrifying and adorable that was her specialty.  
"Well, don't. Pretty soon here we'll be reaching _that age,_" She raised her eyebrows ominously. "_The_ age of forgetting things, and then you won't be pretending."

"Oh, come on!" Phoebe protested. "We're not that old! We're not! Are we?"

A passing Leo heard this and, grinning and glancing pointedly at Piper, he shuffled through the two of them with a quick, witty remark.

"They is _no_ way safe way to answer that question."

Phoebe chuckled as Piper glared.  
"Yeah, well...honey, you're over ninety years old!" She shot back at him. Leo didn't look as disturbed by this as he should have, and chose to let this last retort-gone-badly go without a fight. He moved on to talk to Victor, and one of the other guests as if nothing had happened

Phoebe, however, was extremely concerned and, frowning, put a finger to her lips in the universal 'shut up' sign.

"Shush! There's a mortal here." She scolded quietly, jerking her head at Billie's new, but not meant to last, boyfriend.

"Right."

The oldest Charmed One took a calm, I'm-definitely-not-going-to-worry-about-that sip of the drink in her hands and let out a soft "Umm-hmmm."

Phoebe was prepared to argue her point with the unconcerned (for once) sister, but then Piper raised her eyebrow at something behind Phoebe, and choked with laughter on her liquid. The empath almost cursed when she flipped around and saw it too.

When she turned back to shoot the woman a dirty look, Piper cleared her throat of all mirth.

"Well, you might want to tell your daughter not to beam everywhere, then." The Twice-Blessed One's mother remarked, watching as PJ disappeared in a pink poof only to reappear a few feet away. And then to repeat the process. Suddenly Phoebe didn't have time to argue with her sister.

"Oh, Billie's going to kill me!" Phoebe half sang as she rushed over to take care of it. Not even a quarter of the way there she danced back over to Piper.

"Well? Could you – you know?" Phoebe gestured meaningfully with her hands. With an enormous, drawn out sigh she rolled her eyes, but complied and flicked her hands at the scene.

It took a moment for anyone to notice the difference; most of the people currently occupying the club were either good witches, or some part cupid, who were just as immune to freezing.

Their father Victor, Leo, Henry, Henry Jr, Billie's guy, and a couple of guests were the only ones to stop. Most ignored it, but a select few were...unhappy.

"Hey!" Paige yelled angrily. "Who froze my husband?"  
Now that Henry wasn't looking after them, her twins were attempting to pop all the balloons and tear down all the streamers.

_Who do you think?_ Piper thought, amused, though nevertheless raised her hand.  
"Sorry, that was me!" She said. "But it's all Phoebe's fault."

Yes, it was utterly her fault for giving birth to not one daughter, not two, but _three_, and for all of them to turn out to be tiny little demons.

The empath was far from acting attentive and apologetic to this statement though – she had bigger things to deal with.

"Prudence Johnanna! You know better than this!" She could be heard yelling hoarsely at her daughter.

Many people merely let out a sigh and kept going, though Paige stomped her foot and shot glares at her two sisters, attempting to communicate her displeasure through her eyes. She was, decidedly, failing. Meanwhile Billie could be seen quickly drinking then replacing her boyfriend's martini, which brought a chuckle to Leo's wife.

When it became painstakingly obvious Phoebe's scolding was not going to end before the party was up, the youngest Halliwell sister snapped.

"Piper, just unfreeze the room!" Paige finally demanded, hands on her hips. Tearing her gaze from the new couple, Piper sighed and relenting, flicked her hands again.

Maybe she should've felt guilty about freezing her husband - as she had many times before - but Piper was only amused as Leo blinked at his surroundings cluelessly, seeing people not where he left them. He did turn after a second and glance accusingly at her, although this merely strengthened Piper's case of the giggles. Oh, she really shouldn't have enjoyed that as much as she had.

But after all the pain, loss, and heartache she'd suffered over the years, she thought she deserved it. It wasn't like Leo was really angry at her or anything.

In a moment of overwhelming emotion, she felt her throat clog with all the love she had for her very, very, _very_ large family. She was almost...dare she say it? Content. Like nothing bad could possibly occur that night.

That fact alone should have tipped off Piper Halliwell that something bad was going to happen, but even the world's greatest worrywart couldn't help but become caught up in the normalcy of the event.

Briefly, she wondered if she should call Mel to see if the girl was spending the night over at her friend's house, since that was obviously where she was. Because she obviously wasn't here. Nah, she wouldn't call.

She relaxed again. The party looked great, she had been concerned over nothing.

Then it occurred to her that maybe she shouldn't have let Wyatt come up with the excuse to get Chris to come - they were already more than a little late.

Luckily, almost as though they could sense her thinking about them, the door to her club opened and out stepped Wyatt and Chris.

At the sight of her children, a horrible, unbidden thought rose in her mind; _nothing could go wrong tonight._

That was their penultimate clue, and they still had no idea.

* * *

November 16, 2021_  
_

7:41 PM

If ever Chris was going to murder anyone in cold blood, it would be Wyatt. And if his brother didn't shut up and hurry it along, it would happen in the next five minutes.

"Wy, come _on_." He all but moaned. They stood in a large, bustling grocery store with Wyatt happily pushing a cart practically bursting with groceries – and Chris dragging his feet behind it with a similar, just-as-full cart, picking up the many items that continually fell out of it.

"_Please_." He begged, setting a bag of chips back unto the tenuous pile of junk food. If anyone were to ask him what his least favorite way to spend his precious little free time doing, his answer would probably be shopping with Wyatt.

His brother may have been relatively intelligent, frighteningly powerful, and quick witted, but the guy tended to shop like a girl. Regardless of whether or not they were actually in need of it, Wyatt got it anyway.

Chips? They had to have them.  
Yogurts? Oh, the five billion they had at home probably wouldn't be enough. Toss it in.

Beef Jerky? They needed that too, even if no one really ever ate it.  
Milk? Oh. Wait. That was actually on Piper's grocery list...

Still, Chris couldn't believe how Wyatt thought they needed two groaning carts of food.

They were also obligated to go down _every single row_ – even the row of cleaning supplies, which were all things they_ never_ bought. Why? Why?! _WHY?! _No being alive held the answer. But it was annoying, and stupid, and boring.

In fact, Chris knew of nothing in the entire world as tedious as this. It made him actually want to go his stupid party – the one he knew he was going to despise anyway.

"Please. I'm _begging _you, Wy." The teenager pleaded in a defeated, almost broken tone to his brother.

Unfortunately for the boy, Wyatt didn't know what Chris was getting so worked up over.

"Come on, as I said before – this isn't going to take long. And you know Mom asked _me_ to go to the store this time." He explained pleasantly. Either the Twice Blessed was situationally blind, or he was simply ignoring the I've-been-tortured-by-demons-and-had-more-fun-than -this glare Chris had been sending him since they walked in, because his great mood couldn't be spoiled.

"Yeah, and you were supposed to go _a week_ ago. Mom definitely didn't want you to shop right before my birthday!" Chris half-argued, half-growled. With what Wyatt decided was a very immature and childish groan, the brown-haired boy stopped the cart and trudged back a few steps to recover a box of chocolate chip cookies from it's trip off the cart to the floor.

"Okay, I...forgot." Wyatt admitted reluctantly. "But we'll still make it to the thing – _not_ that you wanted to go in the first place."  
At this jab Chris's horrible scowl only grew. It promoted itself to a full mask of brotherly hate – er, annoyance. Definitely annoyance.

With an upset sort of hesitation, Chris inhaled deeply.

"There are some fates worse than death, Wy, and some even worse than surprise parties." He muttered. It didn't faze the blond that his tone was ridiculously dark.

Instead, Wyatt couldn't help but snort and shake his head, glancing down at the list once more. Like _shopping_ was a punishment crueler than death!

"Sure." He agreed far too readily. "Hmm... did we get the milk yet?"  
Chris's eye twitched. If he were a cartoon, he would've had steam pouring out his ears, and his face would've been redder than Balthazar's.  
"That was... the _only thing_... Mom wanted from the store...in the first place." He answered slowly through gritted teeth, staring at the cart bursting with food. Maybe it was a good thing he hadn't been gifted with a power triggered through the eyes, like Pyrokinesis. The groceries might not've survived otherwise.

Wyatt cheerfully crumpled up the post-it note list and chucked it behind him; not noticing it hit Chris directly on the forehead.

"Great!" He exclaimed, tightening his grip on his own shopping cart. "Then we can go!"

With not a care in the world that he'd just set off a time bomb in his brother, he rushed and dodged expertly through the other shoppers, and zoomed to the check out line. His gleeful grin certainly didn't assist in calming Chris down.  
"I'm going to kill you, Wyatt." Chris murmured viciously. "Very. Very. Slowly."

It took a lot of effort to push the two ton shopping cart after Wyatt's footsteps – apparently, Wyatt had gotten the lighter one – and, as it turned out, it was even harder to do when you were so ticked off you couldn't see straight. Oh, yes. Wyatt was going to die. All there was left to do was plan it all out and preferably, make it look like an accident so his mother wouldn't sent him to join Wyatt. The image of waking up only to find himself in the same shopping center, with his brother, but there being no doors or exists in popped into mind. Terrible scenario. What did Chris like to call that place, exactly? Hell. It was clearly Hell.

His rage had reached it's peak though, and he simply didn't posses enough energy to keep it going for much longer. At this point he was merely going to lose anger.

Chris sighed, letting his head droop to his chest. No, no no. It would be much too much work to kill his brother; plus his conscience and every fiber of his being would be against it. As if he'd ever _actually_ kill anyone...

"Chrissy, hurry up!" Wyatt teased, already in line behind someone.

Instead of a immediately coherent answer, Chris chose to growl and scramble to catch up.

"WYATT! THAT'S THE TWENTY ITEMS OR LESS LINE!" He yelled. The blond pretended not to hear this and shifted his view onto the woman in front of him.

Okay, so maybe he would kill his brother after all.

* * *

A girl, a teenager by her youthful face, stared around at the ransacked room she stood in the middle of. The bed's sheet had popped off; pillows, papers, and clothes littered the carpet; and all the desk's and dresser's drawers had been ripped open. The mess didn't seem to cause her much concern, though. She bit her lip in thought, instead scanning the place as she drummed her fingers against her arm.

The girl was mildly pretty, with long - currently messed up by her nervously running her hands through it - chestnut hair, generous lips, and glossy eyes the color of brandy. She was dressed in dark jeans, high heeled boots, and a nice blue button-down shirt that did nothing to downplay her, er, 'assets'. If not for the impatient fury currently distorting her features, she would've been a very attractive female.

As it was, she looked dangerously angry, and almost as if to prove it, she yanked on her hair and growled.

"Ugh! Where is it?" She hissed. For good measure she kicked an innocent dog toy by her foot. The girl then decided the best use of the next two minutes was to huff and stomp around her room, and proceeded to do so. In anyone younger, or anyone at all with less fire in their eyes, it might've been hilarious. This female though, had too much venom in her to stir more than wary fear from anyone that might be watching. Suddenly music blared from behind her. It was her phone - it was an alarm, meaning she was most certainly going to be late.

An amusingly, inappropriately jolly song played on it. It shortened her temper down to nearly nothing, though it did serve it's purpose; it reminded her she needed to hurry.

"Okay, okay." She took in a deep breath and untangled her hands from her hair, attempting to calm herself down. It took another few breaths before the intense frustration began to pass, and when it did she sighed. Being forgetful was really hard.

"Okay, it'll be okay. It's just one paper...that I worked on for months...that's worth half my grade. It's not like it's a big deal or anything." She tried to argue with her conscience, soon realizing she was using expressive hand motions. To an empty room. Quickly, she curled her hands into fists and forced a small smile.

"It's not like there's a very convenient memory spell I could use, or anything. And even if there was, it was be incredibly petty for me to use it for such a silly thing like this...because the paper definitely wouldn't have helped me get into a good college or anything..."

But despite all the perfectly logical reasons she'd just laid out, she soon gave up her argument and dove under the bed, to where the small book was kept.

"Ooh, whatever. To hell with it! What's the use of being a witch if I can't use it for my benefit?" She reasoned.

It was tiny - little longer than her hand - and a dull brown with no foreseeable markings, making it seem to be no more than an ordinary book whose title had worn off.

But it wasn't. It was clear in the way she held it; respectful, almost reverent, as if, should it be mistreated, it would extract vengeance on her. It might've. Who knows with enchanted books?

"Come on, come on. . ." She muttered, flipping through its pages slowly. She would've loved to tear through it in a mad frenzy, but this book was very, very old, and extremely easy to tear. The knowledge it contained was priceless, although whether it was good or not was definitely up for debate.

"Come on. . . Forget past love spell, truth spell, pain spell, leprosy spell. . ." She tried to ignore the darker entries to the book. It wasn't like she was going to use them or anything, after all - she was a good witch!

_Not bad._ She insisted to herself, letting a lock of brown hair mar her view of the book. _And definitely not in the vicinity of evil._

A sigh crawled past her lips. What was she doing? Using her powers for her own gain? Like. . .an evil witch? A demon? It was one paper, and being the A average student she was, she could probably tell them the truth - that she forgot it – and get a deadline extension. Because her teacher never said that deadlines were deadlines, or anything. And he definitely wasn't extremely strict.

Another sigh escaped.  
For a long moment she wrestled with shutting the book and stuffing it back under her bed, never to be seen again. What good could come from a gift from her mother?

But the temptation to feel the usual adrenaline rush of using magic was too great. It wasn't even a spell harmful to others, so what had she to worry about? She began flipping pages once more, ignoring the little voice in the back of her mind.

Finally, she passed a section where a page had clearly been torn out, and one more and. . .

". . .Teleport spell, memory. . . memory spell!" She exclaimed, jumping to her feet. Shoving her hair back she grinned triumphantly and held the book aloft.

Yes! She was victorious!

.. .And late.

"Oh, crap!" She read the rhyme as fast as she could, repeated it once in her head, and then sucked in a deep breath. Was it foolish to use the spell from the book? Yes. But creating one herself could take weeks, if it even worked at all, and she had spent way too much time agonizing about her dream college to let it slip away from her now. So the girl began to chant, a smile in her eyes, not knowing that by the time the last words left her lips, she – Bianca Nichols – would be dead on the floor.

"Memories I wish to find. . ."

* * *

**A/N: Am I moving things too quickly? Too slow? I honestly have never written a fanfiction as long as I'm wanting this to be, so I may be a little off with the timing. If you can think of suggestions, tell me what you predict the demon's plan is, or just want to gripe about how the show wasted perfect spin off material - put it in a review and tell me! Or PM me, I don't care. **

**I just want to hear from you. ^^ *Audience 'awws'*  
**

**Did I promise you would find out what happened to Chris? Heh, cause I have that part written, it's just...you know, I wanted to shorten the chapter. I wouldn't want to scare you away with large chapters or anything.  
**

**Can't promise when the next one will be, but I'll try for...hmm, a week or two? I hope you guys keep reading!  
**


	5. Shifters, demons, and Biancas, oh my!

Edited; 4-19-13

**Merry Christmas, everyone! Hope you had a good holiday!**

**darcie-magicae-anima** : Yes! Yes! Good guess ^^ I know a lot of people don't like her, but I do. I'm also going to play around with her character, and the fact that she's a demon - cause in the show it's kind of uncertain whether all Phoenix's are pure evil or not. I can assure you that Piper won't be happy about this, should Bianca chose to visit. Hope you keep reading!

Also thanks to **l3largus**, **kisuka1985**,and **Lolzp** for following/faving!

**Disclaimer**: Charmed definitely doesn't not unbelong to me... Or doesn't it?

* * *

November 16, 2021 

6:52 PM  


_Grinning, she strode back through the parlor, the living room, and to the tv, promptly plopping herself down on the couch and picking up the remote._

_"Step two – have fun by doing absolutely nothing for the rest of the night. Check." She smiled, setting her feet up on the coffee table comfortably._

_Suddenly a cold, snarling voice spoke up from behind her._

_"Step three – _die_."_

With a shriek of terror Mel vanished into a swarm of blue lights, narrowly avoiding the fatal blow of the demon's axe. It was close. As much as she would like to claim that she had sensed the brute coming and done it on purpose, it was her instincts that had saved her.

She did have enough sense to reappear on the other side of the room, instead of the now axe-embedded couch. Man, Piper was not going to be happy about that one.

"O-Oh, gosh..." She stuttered when she was able, staring up at the imposing demon. At least six feet tall, he had huge muscles, a menacing glare, and catlike eyes that narrowed as he turned to face her. As their eyes met, he growled, and summoned a fireball in one hand. For a little change, she noted, it was blue rather than the regular burning scarlet. Mel blinked. Wait a minute, wasn't blue fire supposed to be _hotter_ than red?

She had about three seconds to dwell on that revelation before he tossed it at her head.

"Ahh!" The girl yelped as she orbed.

A moment later she chose to re-solidify back in the same spot, spinning around to give him a growl of her very own. She stomped her foot in anger.

"Hey! That almost hit me in _the face_! " She snapped. "You don't see us going around and setting _your_ heads on fire do you? No, you don't. Man, I thought we had rules. You know – you guys kill us, we vanquish you, but neither of us maims the other, or goes for _head _shots! What's wrong with you?!"

The demon actually looked sheepish for an instant, shuffling his feet and staring down at his hands, though, after a thought clearly passed over his face, he frowned and glanced back up at her. It was nigh-impossible for the Halliwell to withhold a small giggle and a large smirk.

"But I'm a demon! I don't care about rules! " He pointed out, miffed.

"Well, yeah..." Mel said. _That_ was obvious.

In the background, she heard the TV cut from commercial to her show and nearly turned around to watch. Because LOST was just that good.

"Um, can we get this over with? I'm missing the LOST season finale." Mel requested with an apologetic smile. It was LOST, after all.

It caused the evil creature to halt his attack, arms raised, duel fireballs in hands, and to simply stare at her with shock.

_Maybe he's surprised that I would even ask that? _She thought, doubting it even as the idea flitted through her mind.

"You haven't seen the finale yet?" He asked, dumbfounded. _Oh. That's all it wa...Hey! _

"I'm just...I've been busy, okay?" She snapped. In a huff she crossed her arms over her chest and shot him dirty looks. The majority of her friends had hung threats of spoilers over her head for months, and she had been lucky enough to find it on that night – but of course, not a second after she'd discovered it, he'd interrupted. Why wasn't he dead yet, again?

Holding up his hands – amusingly, with the fireballs still in them – he mock surrendered to the small female.

"Sorry, sorry." He said. "Didn't mean to offend."

"It's okay." Melinda flapped her hand at him nonchalantly, stepping a few feet over so she could be both in view of the screen and her opponent, while he took that as his cue to move over and closer to her. It sent a tremor of uncertainty through the girl to see him approaching. Where was a vanquishing potion when you needed one? Wait. . .was the one she'd hidden in her sleeve still there? Hmm. . . She'd have to check. Covertly.

If you think it's odd that she would keep such an item on her person, you've clearly never stayed at the Manor for more than a day.

With a savage grin he threw a fireball at her chest. She dodged it with ease, but unfortunately it bounced (since when did fireballs bounce? Mel wondered) off of a nearby chair and smashed into the TV. The image of Jack Shepard tragically flickered, and died, taking with it their civil conversation.

"How am I gonna watch it _now_?" She growled as she stepped towards him in anger, curling her hands into fists. The demon didn't see the vanquishing potion that slid smoothly from her sleeve into her palm as she did so. He didn't seem to notice the corner of her lip curling up either, or the straightening of her back. But he should've.

Instead he shrugged, then chucked the second sphere of death at her while summoning two more. One barely caught the ends of her hair as she was evading, and she hissed in pain as she learned that yes, in fact, blue fireballs _did_ have a more intense temperature than red ones. Luckily for her, the strands didn't manage to stay lit for very long. No lasting damage; it only fueled her hatred for the evil being in front of her.

"Dead _witches_," He spat the word, as so many racist demons tended to. "Don't need TV's. Oh, and by the way..."

Suddenly he shimmered in two inches from her face, so close his rotten breath was hitting her nose, and she narrowly avoided his hidden dagger with a gasp. If it had come any sooner she would've been a human shush-ka-bob!

"Jack dies.(1)" He snarled. Oh, no! No, he did _not _just spoil her favorite show! _H-h-he ruined it! I've waited _months _to see this! _  
"You-you...jerk!" She yelled. "That's _it_!" And with that she hurled the bottle in her hand at the demon as hard as she could. In a flash and a scream, the demon was reduced to a pile of smoking ash on the floor. A cruel, show-spoiling ash pile who definitely deserved a much, much worse fate. Ugh, demons. . . They were just. So. Evil.

The sound of blood dripping shocked her out of her brooding and alerted her to her injured hand; she had thrown the potion too close, and a few bits of glass in her arm had been the result. One the size of her fingertip was sticking out of the back of her hand, and she had to swallow back tears as she reached down to take it out.

"Ow, ow, ow.." She whimpered. She winced, and moaned, bitting her lip to force the extra liquid in her eyes to stay there. It really, really hurt! The world went blurry for an instant, and her stomach churned as she stared at the blood gushing out. It wasn't serious, but it was painful, and it bleeding badly. And Melinda Halliwell did _not_ like blood.

"Wya–" The girl nearly bit off her tongue trying to stop herself. Abruptly, she remembered that her brother was at the party, and should she call for him, her mother would soon find out about this whole mess; she'd probably berate her for the broken TV. For a while she contemplated it, biting her bottom lip unconsciously. She thought better of it. The Twice-blessed's sister decided she would bandage it now and ask him to heal it later – it wasn't as if they were running short on band-aids or anything! _Besides, _She thought with a scowl. _She's probably still mad about me not showing up – which is _totally_ not my fault either! . . .Oh. Wow. I'm getting really good at being a normal angsty teenager. _

Pressing her sleeve against the small wound, she began pulling out all the other shards and brushing a couple off her pants, pondering on what her family was doing at the moment. Were they eating cake about now? Opening presents?

Satisfied that the rest of the glass had left nothing bigger, or bloodier than paper cuts, she started to trudge to hall bathroom, where the bandages were kept.

_Maybe they're realizing I'm not there?_ She wondered idly. _Or playing the let's-find-Chris-for-the-hundredth-time-in-a-row game?_

Mel snickered. Her brother had never done well in the spotlight, not like Wyatt. It didn't particularly matter where it was, or who was around him – Chris preferred sticking to the shadows, like the demons he so enjoyed hunting. Ha! Demon hunting.

"Hmph." She let out a small sound of amusement, not quite a giggle, at the thought. Despite its usual appearance in her life, demon-hunting really was an odd thing for an extra-curricular activity. The name fazed other people, she knew, yet she couldn't see it anymore. It was natural. Usual.

Perhaps not fitting the definition for 'human' should have bothered her, too, as it had bothered her mother and aunts in the past, but growing up in this madness made it seem perfectly ordinary. In fact, should something happen to make her human, she would miss all the magic. The scrying, the potions, the spells – even the ones that went wrong – and the orbing. _Especially_ the orbing.  
The demons she could do without, though, she mused, making a face at her hand. Horrible, nasty things that often passed as humans. They were like big, tricky cockroaches.

Finally reaching the bathroom, she carefully (so as not to jostle her hurt hand) opened the cabinet under the sink and rummaged around for the familiar box with the red plus sign. Where was. . .Ah, there it was!

The brunette pulled out the roll of gauze and scissors and got to work patching herself up. If the price for being a witch was demons, she would gladly pay it, she decided, winding the white bandage around her palm. But nothing – not even having magic – was worth giving up her family for.

This thought startled her.

"Where did that come from?" She wondered aloud. "Gosh, I'm sounding so sentimental all of a sudden. When did I get this sensitive? If this keeps up, before I know it I'll be crying about how much I loved that TV!"

A small giggle at herself followed that prediction, but she found she had laughed too soon. As she began to dwell on the fallen piece of technology, she recalled fond memories of lazy afternoons with it, and cold winters snuggled up with blankets in front of it, and. . .and. . .  
Suddenly she let out a large sniff.  
"It _was_ a great one, though. Oh, how I will morn you, TV."

* * *

The first thing I noticed was the cold. It shouldn't have surprised me – I was cold most of the time. I'd _always _been cold. Wait, no. . . Memories were flowing into my mind, showing me there was, in fact, a time when I was warm, safe, and loved.

A half-smile twisted itself onto my face at the very thought of it. . .the thought of him. Even through closed eyes I knew it was more of a grimace. I never could get the hang of smiles.

But the cold pressed in on me, a terrible, shivering temperature that, due to experience, I should've been able to ignore, and yet I couldn't. And it was annoying. It was one of those irritating things, like the tapping of someone's fingers, that could drive you insane if you let it go on long enough.

In mere nano-seconds my smile became an irritated scowl, and I almost considered opening my eyes to see what was the cause.

My head, though, had decided to show me what it truly meant to have a 'throbbing headache'. It drummed out its own rhythm of pain, unaware of my discomfort and, simultaneously, beckoned me back into sweet oblivion. Never mind the cold, it said to me, sleep. Sleep.

_Alright_. . .

But as I was drifting away, as the darkness was closing back over my head, an actual voice spoke to me, and it _dragged_ me back into consciousness.

_You should get up._ The voice in my mind whispered. _You have somewhere to be. _

I did? _Yes, of course you do._ But I didn't._ But you do. _

School! That was it. Right, school, a certain paper was due today – b-b-but I hadn't gone to school in years! In fact, there _wasn't_ even a school, since it had accidentally gotten in the middle of a battle between. . .between. . .

Who, exactly, was I thinking of?

_That was a silly thought_, I chided myself, rolling onto my side for a more comfortable position. _Where exactly was there a battle, cause I don't remember having one. _

Still, the truth of that insane, unfinished statement weighed down on me, as did the thought of school, so I sighed, resigned, and opened my eyes. I knew one way or the other I would have to wake up – then I could find out what was going on, and if I had some kind of brain damage, or. . .something. With more than mild unhappiness, I forced my eyes open, and stifled a jaw-breaking yawn.

"School. . .right. . ." I muttered, sitting up reluctantly. Then I frowned. Then I gasped.

The room surrounding me had been so throughly ransacked it looked like _Chris's_!. . .on a _good_ day!. . .alright I had to have brain damage.

I didn't know any boy named Chris, and had definitely never been in their room. What was with these strange thoughts? Was I suffering some after effect from some nightmare, or strange food, or alcohol? B-but. . .I didn't even drink!

Man! Could this _be_ anymore confusing?! I held a hand up to my head and rubbed my now worse off temples, examining the place more closely.

"Ha!" I laughed, wincing as it hurt my ears and practically stabbed at my headache. "Right! This is my room. Of course it is, why wouldn't it be?"  
I recognized the posters on the wall, my favorite blue pillow on the bed, and my notes for class scattered almost artfully across my space. And yet, at the same time, I felt the wrongness of it all. The ambience of it was unfamiliar, alien, and had a cold, harsh climate. I wasn't supposed to be here, in this place, and I could feel it in my very bones. I was meant to be. . .meant to be. . .

Suddenly I remembered where I was supposed to be, and ran a shaking hand through my hair as I was forced to collapse on the floor. The room abruptly seemed to spin around me and the edges of my vision seemed to be a little black, after all. . .

I was supposed to be dead. Dead. As in, not living, not being, not _here._ Almost terrified, I hesitantly lifted my shirt to see the place the rod had pierced me, to view the wound that had killed me. _Killed. ._ .Oh. . .

I swallowed hard when my hands, as well as my eyes, found nothing but smooth skin, unblemished by my usual cuts and scars and of course. . .the huge _freaking tailpipe _that had impaled me!

Breathe in, breathe out – in, and out, I told myself as I began to hyperventilate. It's going to be okay. In, out. Oh, man, I had actually _died. _PERISHED! Ceased to exist! H-How do you even _begin_ to process something that huge? Okay, okay, breathe in. . .now out. . .

A single thought saved me from simply lying down on the floor and sobbing out my sorrow and confusion for hours, and it was a very unlikely one at that; I was meant to be at school. Probably an hour ago.

I blinked, still trying to breathe correctly so I didn't pass out, and I began to speak to my room, if only to help me figure it out. Mainly, it was just so I didn't faint like a squeamish, little girly girl.

"I-I died, but I didn't..." I said, overwhelmed tears on the brink of spilling out. "I-I know I'm supposed to...g-go to school...s-so...so I am obviously alive.  
"Right." I furrowed my brow, still forcing back tears. It was so embarrassing, but these new memories had swamped my brain without warning, and I was struggling to cipher it all out. Yes, they were definitely memories of some kind.

They were conflicting, maddening, and vibrant in my addled brain, and it took everything I had not to lie back down, shut my eyes, and slink back into the sweet numbness sleep offered me. It wouldn't solve a thing, I knew, and this situation would still be here when I woke up. So. . .memories.

They were the key to this, I noted, and strived to focus solely on them. Rather than, you know, the whole being-dead thing, because that still had me wanting to burst into sobs.

Leaning back against the bed, I shut my eyes and tried to piece together my life from the beginning. Whatever happened before. . .you-know-what. I had to force back a shudder, but after that, it got easier. It was then I simply let the stream of memories out, and like a dam, they flowed quickly and swiftly through my mind. I shouldn't say it was pleasant, but it certainly wasn't uncomfortable – it was rather like letting out the breath you'd been holding – and it held a kind of rightness to it that made the entire thing soothe my frazzled nerves. If only a bit.

A tear of relief escaped when the memories of, what had to be two separate lives (based upon my death in one, and tardiness in the other) started out the same.

Living with Mom, and learning about our kind. Spells, scrying, potions, even how to fight – and my mother had taught it all to a little girl, not even into her double digits.

That's where the memory strands began to split into two. On one side there was the hell that Mom had raised me in, how the woman had taught me to kill before I was legally able to drive, and how much I resented her for lying to me all those years. It created a righteous fury in me even now, and I had to curl my hands into fists to avoid hitting anything. It _was _supposed to be my room after all.

But a part of my mind screamed at me that none of it had happened like that, so I frowned, deciding to follow the other strand. Hmm...

Of course! The truth was that at six years old, I went to live with my father – a _human _father – and he raised me to be a good, moral human, and. . .and I loved him for it.

Both of the memories made _perfect_ sense in my head until I put them together; a person just didn't have two lives! This was completely crazy! Memories didn't just _pop _up out of nowhere, not even to demon-witches! One of these lives had to be...fake. Yeah. Counterfeit. So how was I supposed to choose what was real and what wasn't? They both felt real. All of the pain, the suffering, and the heartache in the two echoed vibrantly in my memory, as if they had just happened. I honestly couldn't find a fault in either one; other than that small thing of living in an apocalyptic world.

The very idea that I actually _loved _one of my parents scared my numb, closed off heart so badly. . .So that couldn't be true, could it?

_Remember how he used to read you stories till you fell asleep? _A voice in my head whispered. _You used to have nightmares, and the only thing that comforted you was his soft, deep voice. _

Unbidden feelings of fondness rose, as did a lump in my throat, and the horrible thing was that I _did _remember these things – I remembered _him. _

Yet if I hadn't grown up to be an assassin, if Mom hadn't raised me to be a killer, then how had I met Chris? How had he saved me, protected me, and convinced me to join his side in the war?

Because as much as I loved my father, a foreign, terrifying parental love, I also loved Chris; a hot, passionate love that refused to die.

I thought about both sets of memories and wondered which was the result of a spell, or curse or whatnot. Which one? One where I was dead, and one where I lived. One with a fiancée, one with a loving parent. One where I was a killer, one where I was just. . .late for class. Which was false, and which rang true? Which had successfully tricked my heart?

Suddenly my eyes flew open. I crawled on my hands and knees across the floor till I ran across the book, and I picked it up. I felt the tremors in my hands pass through the object as they connected.  
"Memory spell." I breathed, staring at the page. That was right – I'd cast a spell on myself! This morning, so I could find my paper.

Wow. It felt like a lifetime ago. But it was good news. No, no, it was great news!

"So...so they're both real!" I laughed, tears falling onto the book, which I soon placed in my lap. "I'm not dead! I-I just remembered dying! Hah!"  
Abruptly, I burst into a fit of hysteric giggles, tears of laughter trailing down my face as I finally broke. Hey, death can turn anyone slightly crazy. I bet I lasted five minutes longer than _you_ would've.

"Ha, ha ha! Ha!...ha...Okay, I'm just gonna...pass out now.." I murmured, feeling black overwhelm my vision. I slumped to the ground with a small smile still on my lips.

Really, I'm amazed I lasted that long. What am I in this life, just a prissy schoolgirl? Psh.

* * *

The room was nearly perfectly divided down its center – one half held many illuminating torches, whilst the other slowly descended into pure, untainted black. The fact that it resembled – and probably was – a cave with its sharp, eroded stone walls and cold, watery floors merely added to the picturesque scene. On each side stood a figure, and soon one began to talk.

"...Of course, you only have to do this for a few days. They won't notice the change until it's far too late." A deep, accented voice spoke out in the darkness to a tall, brown-haired boy on the light side.

The boy blinked, his glassy green eyes void of humanity. It took a moment for him to answer.

"Yes, sir." He intoned emotionlessly.

The voice stepped into the light to show a dashing man in long, billowy dark-green robes, and a complex symbol could be seen on his hand as he swept them out-of-the-way.

His handsome amber eyes sparkled with mirth – as though they knew a secret no one else did.

"Now, now." He chided, amusement clear in his tone. "That's not right. Remember what we practiced, dear boy."

Slinging his arms from his sides to his chest, crossing them, and forcing his relaxed face into a scowl, the boy turned to the man for inspection.

"This better?" He asked, adding just a dash of sarcasm and annoyance to his voice.

The man laughed and patted him on the back, as if congratulating a son. It was hard to see, since his face was so unmovable, but the boy seemed to swell the tiniest bit with pride.

"Very good, very good. I think you'll do fine." He smiled. "Now go! Hurry, before it's too late. We wouldn't want your job to be over before you begin, would we?"

The boy nodded firmly and closed his eyes like he was waiting for something to occur, but suddenly the man yanked on his hand. The boy nearly jumped out of his skin in terror.

"Remember, boy – _don't._ Touch. The empath." The man in the robes growled in a slow, gravelly tone. So intense was his stare that the young male began to sweat, though his face had become, once again, a merciless façade. The man searched his eyes for a long, silent while. Then he nodded, apparently satisfied with what he'd seen.

"You may go." He dismissed him. Knowing better than to dally, the boy nodded, and in a flash he disappeared into thin air, though the man didn't seem to find this odd at all.

Instead, he chose to gaze down at the ground where a strange, glimmering pool(3) lay. It was wide, though not very big, and was so dark and deep it looked like it might go on forever. It was also as black as deep space, and gave off a terrible, frightening feel – not that the man was in any way intimated.

He waved his hand over the surface and peered down expectantly. Sure enough, a few seconds later a picture glowed into focus. A picture of the very same boy lying down, unconscious, bound to some sort of chair. Blood trickled from his split lip and he appeared to be bruised.

The man's smile only grew as he watched and took inventory of every injury. His savage amber eyes hungrily looked on and soon, it was all he could do not to laugh. It would've been too cliché.

Still, he wasn't above making normal villain remarks. And so he did. . .

"This is going to be a good day." He whispered joyfully.

* * *

7:55 PM

He was crouched by the car, silent, unblinking, absolutely still as he waited patiently for them. His dark eyes never once moved from their target, but his ears were open, listening to every sound around him. Birds, in a nearby tree, were squabbling over which branch belonged to whom. A couple stumbled towards him on the right, laughing in unison as they walked back to their vehicle.

Many people pasted by the boy throughout the hours, but not a single one gave him any recognition; not even a passing frown. It wasn't natural for someone to crouch next to a stranger's car for hours, and it _certainly _wasn't natural that the boy didn't seem to be breathing. In fact, the only part of him that moved was his brown bangs, and only when the wind chose to jostle them out-of-place.

Yet not even the birds took notice. He stayed there for a long time, simply staring, never so much as twitching, and looked the picture of supernatural self-control – but in his mind he was animatedly furious.

Restrained anger clashed with a good dose of fear and doubt in him, and there was even a small bit of boredom thrown in. His face showed nothing of it, of course – it wasn't as if he hadn't been trained! He could've stayed in that position for days if he had to. Possibly a week, if necessary. And he _would've_ easily hidden his feelings for months, too, if not for this assignment. . .

It wouldn't do to hold onto his fear, he knew, for it bred weakness. Anger, though, they were supposed to keep, but hidden, deep, _deep _inside. Boredom? It was for fools. You were to respect the task given to you if you didn't want to be killed.

And yet as he waited there in the poorly lit parking lot, next to an old, blue Toyota, he did none of those things, and instead snatched his feelings close and used them for fuel to the fire in his heart. It was keeping his energy from running low, to be honest.

He nearly ruined it all when he spotted them, and almost let out a sigh of relief. Luckily he caught himself in time, and slowly shifted away from the car's back tire to the trunk, so as not to be seen by them as they came around. The two brothers, that is. The Halliwells.

Even the name sent a shiver down his spine. It meant 'death' for anyone who failed in their scheme, and most of them did.  
This one might as well, he thought, sweat beading on his forehead. Sure, the man had promised him success, but hadn't most of them before him? What respectable demon hadn't considered their strategy _the_ perfect one, like all Americans thought that _they_ would be the one-in-a-million to win the lottery? And then they were vanquished, one after another. Er, the demons, not the Americans.

The boy knew that he could still walk away. It hadn't started quite yet, and if he decided to leave now the Halliwell's would never even know of his plan. He wouldn't have to die painfully by the mother Charmed One's hands, his molecules exploded into tiny bits. One of his feet slid backwards of its own accord, clearly agreeing with this new course of action.

_But. . .the man will find and kill me in a heartbeat._ He remembered, turning reluctantly back to the pair only three feet from him, completely obvious to his presence. No. No, he would have to do this, and he would have to be the first to succeed because he was not going to die.

He'd promised her after all. . .

So he would have to be careful, quick, and perfect in these next crucial moments. Yes. Yes. Without another thought he stood up, took in the positions of The Twice Blessed One and his target, and slunk towards him by relying on the shadows.

"Wy, I'm going to _murder_ you." The brown-haired boy muttered, utterly clueless to the teenager standing directly behind him.

_This is terrifyingly easy. He doesn't even _sense _me! _

"What's that, Chris?" Wyatt shouted from in the trunk as he was putting all the groceries into it by himself. His brother had pointedly refused to help in protest of the whole trip.

"I said you're an idiot!" Chris yelled back.

His heart quickened as he realized Wyatt wasn't looking at his brother, and Chris was glaring at the ground. It was perfect. Too perfect. As if fate was mocking his fears, taunting him that they were all for nothing – but hadn't every other demon thought the same thing?

Still, an opportunity was an opportunity, and he was going to take advantage of it. In a single movement, his fingers barely brushed Chris's neck and suddenly they both had shimmered away before he'd even realized someone was touching him.

One moment they were in the parking lot, the next the two were in a stereotype dark, dank alley. It was chilly. Chris was understandably upset, and whirled around to see the culprit of his change in surroundings.

The teenager's breath caught as Chris's cold green eyes narrowed onto him, and froze for half of a second in absolute shock. The Halliwell could see him! The spell was supposed to take care of that. It was meant to make him unseen until he said so! Not good. Very not good. He was going to die, he was going to die, he was going to. . .

_The plan. _The voice in the back of his head growled. _Remember the plan. Just. . .give him the bracelet. Then leave._

"Hey! Who the heck are you? Why did. . . You know what, doesn't matter -"  
"Eripite, hanc, alica!(2)" He shouted, interrupting the witch's protest and praying to The Source that he'd pronounced it correctly. Latin was hard. Abruptly he felt more visible, more. . .exposed, indicating the incantation had worked. But there was not time to dwell on that, since the witch had already gone into attack mode. The boy barely dodged a punch to the jaw and jumped back a few feet to find the Halliwell staring at him.

"Dude, that is not even funny." Chris spat, looking the boy up and down. "That's _my _look. Stop it."

_I'm definitely going to die now. . .for sure. . .The plan! Oh right, the plan. _He remembered, blinking out of his stupor. Right. They hadn't arrived yet, but the man had promised everything would time out flawlessly. Alright, time to have faith.

With a huge breath he shimmered out and appeared behind the Halliwell, hoping for a surprise attack. He lunged forwards and quickly clipped the magical item around Chris's wrist and was pleased to see that the man had _not _lied, in fact, because the brown-haired teen didn't even seem to notice or see it. Was it truly invisible like the girl had charmed it to be? Seeing as he'd paid extra for that little feature, he was satisfied to see that his money had not been in vain. Then the boy let the familiar sensation of vanishing into thin air overwhelm his body. But the Halliwell wasn't going to let him get away that easily. . .

He shut his eyes tight as the brown-haired boy sent a _whole dumpster_ flying at his head, and felt the air _whoosh_ towards him, about to be squished – but opened them a second later to find that yes, he had shimmered in time. Head still in tact, thankfully. The sigh of relief couldn't be suppressed now. Oh it was marvelous to be alive! Beautiful! Amazing? Though, as he glanced around the parking lot, doubt started to sizzle in his mind, sneering that Chris could easily orb back to The Twice Blessed and they could destroy him together instead. Never mind the plan! The stupid, _stupid _plan! What if it didn't go the way the man had said? What if they didn't show up? What if the bracelet failed? What if –

"Chris? You want me to leave you here?"

He glanced up to find the Twice Blessed One – no, _Wyatt,_ he recalled_ –_ staring, puzzled, at him while he shut the trunk and walked back to the car door. With a quick look at his reflection in the window, the boy smiled when he saw his disguise. Chris's green eyes, a darker, crueler shade than they ought to be, smiled back at him.

"Just a second, Wyatt!" He called back in a voice not his own. After a few seconds of waiting he discovered – to his glee – that the real Chris had yet to show up. Meaning it had worked. Adrenaline rushed through his veins as he realized he had _done _it. Really, truly done it and more than that; he'd _succeeded! _Oh, wait till he told _her! _A-and the man would be so proud of him!

The boy had never experienced such a savory rush elation before that moment, and it was so strong it very nearly broke his self-control and twitched his lips upwards. A smile. He couldn't recall the last time he'd felt such an urge, only the times he'd faked them for the sake of the mission. It was sort of neat.

The boy who wore Chris's appearance opened the passenger's side door, and found himself caught in The Twic– _Wyatt's_ deadly, intense gaze. Ice blue eyes that were so deceivingly soft half the time, burning past his stolen skin into his very heart and soul. It was unnerving.

"Are you alright, Chris?" The blond asked. The brother couldn't sense the change, could he? The man had claimed the bracelet the imposter had just now clamped around the Halliwell's wrist – Wyatt hadn't noticed either, even though this one hadn't been charmed to be invisible – would take care of the whitelighter issues, and yet it was the Twice Blessed One; the teen was the exception to most rules.

Suddenly he had to suppress a shudder. Alright, so maybe there was still work ahead; like surviving a car ride with the monster that had slaughtered thousands of his kind.

Needless to say, he chose his reply carefully, putting on the Chris persona with difficulty.

"I'm fine, Wyatt." He managed to snap despite the fear. "I thought we were late, already." Right? He added mentally.

Finally, Wyatt turned his gaze to the road and started up the old car. The worry and uncertainty was clear in his voice when he replied,  
"Yeah, Chris. I just thought. . .never mind."

The boy sucked in a long, deep breath as they pulled out of the parking space; this was going to be a very long, awkward drive.

* * *

8:00 PM

It shouldn't have mattered. He shouldn't have spared it a second thought. But it nagged at him, and itched, and irritated, until he was forced to consider the matter in-depth.

Wyatt couldn't have possibly taken his eyes from Chris for more than a minute or two in the store parking lot. Plus, Chris could handle himself; either with his sarcasm, spontaneous spells, or his telekinesis.

Therefore, there was no plausible way a demon could've snuck up on Chris, done something evil, and left without Wyatt hearing a sound. Chris couldn't be possessed, under a spell, or a shapeshifter in disguise, and the fact that he was acting weird was because he was furious at the Twice Blessed for taking so long in the store.

It didn't quite explain the cold glimmer in his eyes, or the way he'd snapped everything he'd said since then, or his inexplicably calling the older teen 'Wyatt', instead of 'Wy'.

_He's just mad at me. _Wyatt reasoned. Mentally, he shooed the thought that something was wrong away, and settled into his seat in the car. He needed to focus on driving anyway. Piper would kill him if he had another accident.

"Ready to be mobbed by a bunch of crazy people?" He joked, as a sort of peace-offering to his ticked off brother. Chris – well, someone who may or may not be Chris...STOP THAT! – sat in the passenger seat, back straight with his armed crossed, and his head as close to the window as he could get without touching it, so he wouldn't hit it when the car went over a bump.

It shouldn't have bothered Wyatt. It was something Chris would do. It was something Chris _was _doing. Still, a prickly sensation crawled down his spine as he glanced over at his unresponsive sibling.

"Chris?" He asked.

"Yeah, yeah. Sure." The boy grumbled, reaching over to turn the radio up. Any other time, Wyatt may have laughed, or switched the station to annoy Chris, or even turned it off to start a radio war with his little brother, but he couldn't seem to shake the feeling that something wasn't right.

It followed him as he drove closer and closer to P3, and intensified when they parked the car. All attempts to shake the feeling had failed. Puzzled, Wyatt turned the motor off, and slowly pulled the key out of the ignition, watching as Chris got out of the car without glancing in his direction. There wasn't anything to worry about.

Then it occurred to him that some of the items they'd bought needed to be refrigerated, and Chris was likely to lecture him on that.

_And he will. Because everything is fine. _Wyatt insisted to his subconscious. As if Chris being annoying was going to prove anything at all. . .  
But Chris didn't say a word as he trudged, in near perfect Chris-sulking-imitation, to the door of their mother's club. Wyatt stared, open-mouthed. His hand was still on the car door and one foot was still inside.

It shouldn't have been a big deal. It _really _shouldn't have mattered. Yet somehow, it was and it did.

Instead of shoving these inexplicable feelings into the darkest corner of his mind for the night, he chose to gently file it away, and ask one of his aunts later what they thought. They were usually right was things like this, and wouldn't necessarily throw a fit if he was right/wrong. Unlike certain other people.

But regardless of their response, they always managed to calm his irrational side down, and he definitely needed that at the moment.

So he swallowed the lump in his throat, shook off his shocked expression, and shut the door with a slam.

"Finally." Chris muttered, standing right in front of the door. Wyatt shot him a suspicious look as he strode up – but Chris didn't want to go in there, so of course he wasn't going to open the door. The only reason he was standing there at all was because of various threats from his family. Right.

With a resigned sigh, Wyatt put on his customary smile, and opened it.

* * *

**A/N**: Didja see the word count? It's over SEVEN THOUSAND! That's _gotta_ make up for not updating in a while, right? *Sweat drop* Right? Guys?!

Sorry for forgetting about Melinda for a couple of chapters. I'm not really sure how to capture her character since she wasn't on the show, and I can't seem to get a copy of the Charmed Comics. . .not that I've been looking extra hard, or anything.

So I guess she's my interpretation of the character. Hope she doesn't bother you too much! The scene with her and the demon was fun. It was my attempt at lighthearted-ness and humor, but. . .I don't think it went that well. XD

As always, please review and keep on 'a reading!

(1) He does die, right? I remember Locke (a.k.a TMIB) hitting him with a rock... It's been a while. But I'm pretty sure one version of him dies.

(2) Sorry. Crappy rhyming ability plus inherent laziness equals Latin spell. (I don't know how that even works. O.o) It means 'Remove this spell' which isn't very good, I know, so I apologize to the Latin-speaking people reading this fic and seeing my Google-translated Latin.

Gomen.

(3) Yes, it is the seer's pool. So what he was seeing was about to happen. Does that make sense? I know I put stuff kind of out of order, and I'm sorry. Hopefully it will all make perfect sense...eventually.


	6. The Never Ending Question

Edited; 4-12-13

Thanks to TV Manic 2 and empire14 for following! And samanddeanaholic, dizzy101, Animals9990 and kisuka1985 for faving!

**Disclaimer** - Charmed doesn't belong to me.

Please read and review!

* * *

November 18, 2021

10:29 AM

Bianca Nichols realized two things upon waking up, and both were very disheartening.

One – even the alternate future version of herself, who was awesome, kicked butt and killed people, fainted like a girl. Two – she was probably not going to make it to school today.

_Really? You're disappointed about missing school? _A dry voice in her mind asked. _Well, maybe you shouldn't have cast the memory spell then. _

The girl sat up from her strangely comfortable position on the floor, and stood up on shaking legs.

"W-who said that?" She demanded, cursing herself for stuttering. Her room was fairly small, with only a bed, desk, and a broom cupboard of a closet. It took five seconds at most to confirm whether or not another person was there. There was not.

Bianca grabbed on tight to the back of her desk chair and with the other hand searched in the desk drawer for her atheme, because while her mother could summon it at will, she hadn't quite got the hang of that trick.

Suddenly, after grasping at thin air for seconds, she held up her hand to reveal a slightly longer dagger. It fitted to her hand flawlessly, as if they were made for each other, and it's design was beautifully intricate and clearly deadly – but it wasn't hers.

_Were you looking for this? _The voice – a snappish, slightly annoyed sounding female voice – chuckled inside her head. It took her a moment to realize who it was, and when she did she wanted to slap herself. Instead, she chose to answer it and hope it couldn't hear her self-loathing thoughts.

"How are you talking to me? I-I thought. . .a-after the spell, I thought that we were supposed to be one person with two sets of memories, o-or something." She stuttered, unused to being so unsure of herself.

_We are. _The voice – er, the _other _Bianca – said. _I mean, you have all of my memories, right? _

The _real _Bianca squinted, slowly sinking into the chair she'd been holding, and tried to focus of the memories her spell had wrought. They were sort of. . .fuzzy. Not exactly in focus, as if she would need a pair of glasses to see them properly. But they were there. At least, the basics were.

She found herself nodding, and speaking aloud.

"Yeah. I think I do." She answered.

_And I have yours. Sort of. Anyway, I think that this is just some after effect of the spell, and over time, I should disappear, and we'll become. . .one. Probably. Maybe._

Even without the 'glasses' she would need to see the full glory of the assassin-witch's life experiences, she could feel the pain, anguish, and surplus of issues that came with them.

She didn't want to become 'one' with that!

"And maybe that's the problem." She murmured at the same time Assassin-Bianca said it in her mind.

The girl awkwardly rose to her feet and stepped away from the desk, as if putting distance away from the spot they shared a thought would help to _not_ make them become 'one'. Bitting her lip, she glanced upwards to see if the Bianca upstairs would elaborate. Sure, she had an idea, but she wasn't going to voice it if the _other_ one was!

An image of the assassin rolling her eyes momentarily overwhelmed the teenager's brain, and she let out a loud gasp.

"That was. . .don't do that again." She whispered, clutching her temples. It felt like someone had shoved an entire movie screen in her face to show her just one scene.

_Sorry. But as _I _was saying, I think that our unwillingness to meld souls is what's causing this in-between stage. _

Bianca frowned, tugging anxiously on a strand of copper hair.

"So all we'd have to do is _will _it to happen, and poof? I get all of your psychosis mess of a personality and need a therapist for the rest of my life?"

_Hey, like I want to get your memories of being a stuck-up schoolgirl! _

The teenager growled at herself, jumping up and crossing her arms in a feeble attempt to look more intimidating. . .to the voice inside her mind. Then something occurred to her. She lost her stance and threw herself onto the bed to stare at the ceiling, as she liked to do when she was figuring something out.

"So.. er, other me, why did we remember this at all?" She questioned. "Why did my memory spell dredge up a whole other life instead of simply revealing where I'd left my paper? I mean, I was concentrating on the paper, and it should've worked. I am _not_ an amateur witch. But of all things, I remembered a past life. Or is it an alternate future?"

_Technically I think you'd call me the 'evil Bianca' from the 'evil future'. But to me it was just the way things were, and it was always going to stay that way. I guess. . .Chris really did fix it, then. Save his brother and all. _

Bianca Nichols smiled unconsciously just thinking about the boy named Chris. Out of the bloody, tortured, messy, absolute _hell_ of a pile of distorted sounds and images that was other Bianca's memories, Chris's were the only ones that she could view in perfect clarity.

He was very handsome. With mischievous green eyes – the ones that said he wasn't telling you everything – a bad hero complex, and a beautiful smile that rarely showed, the six foot, lanky boy had stolen Assassin-Bianca's heart without even trying. It was kind of romantic. Bianca Nichols was jolted out of this line of thinking by another, of her other self's.

_As to why the memory spell did this, I'm not sure. I doubt our paths even crossed more than once, so it doesn't make sense for you to recall what never happened. Unless. . ._

"Unless?" She prompted, a little irritated at these theatrics.

_Magic always works. One of the Charmed One's used to say that Magic works it mysterious ways, but it _always _works. So perhaps this was destined to happen. Perhaps I was meant to. . .you know what, never mind._

But the high schooler had heard the end of that thought anyway, and the sheer amount of hope the tortured dead-girl had squashed made her sad.

"Perhaps you and Chris were meant to be together." She finished for her, gently. "Perhaps you were meant to remember what you did, how you guys fought, and finally, _finally _get married."

Bianca could feel the Assassin's longing, and she was almost caught up in the romance of it all. Almost.

At the last second she remembered that it would be _her_ that got married, _her _that spent time with the boy, and _her _lips that he would kiss because the dead girl was. . .well, dead. She didn't have a body, and couldn't do any of those things.

As much as she thought of Chris as cute and wouldn't mind dating him, she shivered at the thought of a boy looking at her and seeing _someone else._ A ghost. The weirdness that began to build in her dissipated as she changed the subject abruptly.

"Okay, we need to give you a nickname." Bianca declared, deciding it was too difficult to keep referring to the Future Bianca as 'the other Bianca'. Despite their same name and shared childhood (mostly), their personalities were not_ remotely_ similar.

_I should keep the name Bianca. _The dead-woman argued. _I've had it longer. _

"Nuh-uh!" She protested. "My body, my name!"

_I don't suppose you have anything better to call me? _

"Um..well. . ." The teen had always been terrible at nicknaming people. This time was no exception. The woman sent an image of a smug smile, but Bianca was ready for it this time and didn't feel as overwhelmed. It was more like a small slide she was viewing – much less assaulting.

_Yeah, I didn't think so._ Other Bianca said._ I'll be Bianca, and you can be. . .er, B. _

"So you're stealing my name and just leaving me an initial?"

_Unless you'd rather use our middle name. _Bianca suggested.

The girl shuddered.

"Lauren? It sounds like a librarian's name. Look, you know what? I think you're just as good at nicknaming people as me, cause both of those ideas _suck._"

For a second, she could sense the Other Bianca holding back a childish retort of "So's your face." partly, she guessed, because it was stupid, and partly because they had the same face.

Finally she heard a short, impatient sigh echo in her head (funny how that worked) and the woman crossed her arms over her chest, an impish grin on her lips.

_Fine, fine. I'm not good at nicknaming. But what about that boy from when we were young? You know, across the hall from Mother? The one with the blue eyes? _

The teen cocked her head to the side and spit out a piece of hair she'd been chewing on. That was certainly random. For a second no one that matched that description sprung to mind, but then it came to her.

"You mean Josh? The boy we had a crush on?" She questioned, confused.

_Yes! Yeah, him! What did he used to call us? _

The words 'us' and 'we' should've caused more concern in Bianca Nichols – it really should've. Yet she barely noticed.

A smile spread across her face at the thought of her first crush and the fond memories that followed.

"I introduced myself James Bond style and he thought my name was Nicole for the longest time –"

– _And we liked him too much to ever correct him. Man, he had the biggest, bluest eyes... _They sighed together.

Quickly, Bianca blinked out of her nostalgia.

"You want me to be Nicole?"

_I think it fits. Don't you? _

The girl considered for a time, twisting and turning on her bed, now out-right ignoring the clock on her bedside table that was screaming at her that she was skipping school. That she was going to regret this.

"Okay." She said finally, surprising even herself. "Okay, I'll be Nicole. And you can be Bianca."

Bianca 'Nicole' Nichols nodded, that settled, and rolled off her bed to the magical tome on the floor. She picked it up, and decided to tread outside her room to the kitchen – because any more thought to the magical mess she'd gotten herself into would require large amounts of junk food. And chocolate.

_Amen, sister. _

* * *

November 16, 2021

7:57 PM

To say Chris was a little surprised would've been an understatement. It was all he could do for a few seconds just to stare at. . .himself.

A teenager the same height as him, with identical eye color, face structure, and hair – the same all the way down to his scars, he was sure. It was a shapeshifter.

One of the strangest things Chris had ever thought in his life were these words,_ I just kidnapped myself. _A shapeshifter had shimmered him away from the store parking lot – and Wyatt – and while half of his brain was already shifting into fight mode, the other half was secretly hoping he could use this as an excuse not to show up at the party. Was that petty? Probably.

Letting one hand drift to his pocket for the potion always kept there, he began to size up the shifter, and idly wondered what the demon's plan was. It wasn't as if it was going to get very far, but there had to be a reason the shifter had become him _before _trying to kill him, instead of after, and _then_ going after the Charmed One's powers, or the book, etc. etc.

Throw him off, maybe? He frowned. Actually, that front was working a little. Though the Halliwell knew a lot on these kinds of demons and had faced a few of them previously, it was always kind of unnerving to vanquish yourself. It feel like a preview to what would happen if he upset Piper one too many times.

"Dude, that's not even funny." He snapped at fake-Chris. "That's _my_ look. Stop it." The demon didn't – but then, Chris hadn't really expected him to.

Other than his copycat appearance, it also troubling that the fake-Chris had shouted some kind of incantation after shimmering, meaning he had put some thought into this. The demon had a plan, which never ended well for anyone. What had it sounded like again? Eripite, hand, Alice? Wait, no. It was some kind of Latin! He took Latin, he'd recognized some of the words, and the translation was on the tip of his tongue...

No, no no! NO! The vanquishing potion wasn't in his pocket. He'd already used it this morning to take out a low-level demon at breakfast, and he'd forgotten to grab another one on his way out. It was too late anyway; the shapeshifter had already shimmered. Suddenly he whirled around to see the shifter behind him, backing up and staring at him in utter terror, and strangely glancing from at his wrist every few seconds. Halfheartedly Chris looked down; there was nothing there, of course. The demon must've been crazy.

And then he was already taking a step back, closing his eyes as if to shimmer away like his job was done. What.

"No, you don't!" Chris murmured, feeling vaguely annoyed that the shifter had gone through all the trouble of snatching him to this dark alley only to leave now. That smelled of either a brilliant scheme or an idiotic idea.

Before he knew what he was doing, anger flared briefly inside him and he flicked his fingers at the only thing around – a whole dumpster. It was sent flying at the demon's head, and very nearly hit him.

But when Chris blinked, the shapeshifter was gone, and the dumpster crashed to the ground with a lot of noise.

Suddenly Chris felt incredibly drained, and knew he shouldn't have strained his powers like that. His telekinesis wasn't so different from his muscles (in certain ways) and if he tried to lift something that his powers weren't used to it was going to hurt him tomorrow. He sighed, running a hand through his hair. He was such an idiot.

"Thanks so much for bringing me to such a nice place." He grumbled sarcastically, kicking a nearby soda can. With another sigh, he realized the look-alike was not coming back to finish what _he _started. "Better get back to Wyatt, then." And warn his family that if they saw him doing anything strange, they should probably assume it wasn't him. Well, strange for _him_.

But before he could orb, suddenly a loud voice on a speaker was shouting from behind him,

"Christopher Halliwell, this is the police! You are under arrest! Put your hands up!"  
Slowly, he turned around and raised his hands above his head, squinting as bright high beams blinded him for a moment. His inner danger alert was practically screaming at him as he did so. Why? It was the police, and he was being arrested and that was awful – especially since he was pretty sure he hadn't broken any laws lately – yet it didn't seem like the sort of thing his 'witchy sense' should be worried about. They were the good guys. . .more or less. But something about this it. . .it wasn't right. It was off. Tentatively, he took a step back so he could see better. That was a mistake. For though the alarms in his head quieted a bit, two men from behind him grabbed him and shoved a strange smelling cloth under his nose.

That _definitely _wasn't right, or legal. Not unless they'd changed the law when he wasn't looking. He brought his elbows back hard on where he guessed their stomachs were, eliciting groans from the two men and making them drop said cloth. Nope. Definitely not real policemen; they were dressed in black _skimasks_ and black body armor.

As he turned to run around them and _finally _orb back to Wyatt (this really wasn't turning out to be his night) several more men jumped out, this time from the car, and began to chase him. They were also not wearing police uniforms, but they were carrying guns.

They were human and looked sort of like some FBI. But they were after him. That didn't make any sense whatsoever, because to other humans he wasn't anything special; he was a simple high schooler that just got into trouble sometimes. He'd never so much as stolen a candy bar! Yet these men clearly wanted him for something and not to arrest him. Fine, fine! That was fine, since all he had to do was dive out of sight and just-just orb away! That would solve that problem, right? At least Wyatt would be there for backup – something he would kill to have right about now.

His legs pumped harder, his breath came in gasps, and he chanced a look over his shoulder. Crap. He wasn't going to outrun these men or even get out of their sight. Surely there was like a dumpster he could dive in – ew – or a corner he could jump around! Obviously the leprechaun community had decided to gang up on him tonight, for he possessed no such luck. Um, alright. That was okay – he could still figure something out. Like...Like...

_The demon. _He thought, covertly (with his telekinesis) knocking down some trash cans to slow them down. _He brought me here to...what? Hand me over to these humans. At least, I think they're humans. If they're not I'm gonna be really... But what would a demon be doing working with people? It doesn't seem like their style. _

The teenager agilely swerved around a corner, which, unsurprisingly, led to another dirty, empty back-alley. Still not even a dumpster. Yet by now his legs were starting to ache, complaining that since their owner was definitely _not _in track they weren't going to stand for this abuse much longer.

His brain, however, was on fire, and was actually starting to get somewhere; and this was, ironically, despite the decreasing amount of oxygen.

_So the demon shimmers me to some deserted alley – very cliché – and these humans are just 'coincidentally' waiting for me? Tch. They plan to take me somewhere, if that was chloroform on the cloth –_ it had certainly smelled slightly sweet like chloroform – _but what do the two parties hope to accomplish? _

Chris ran straight into a dead end. Though on some level he was freaking out, his brain was racing excitedly. _With me distracted the demon is free to pretend to be me, and take whatever he wants from the house. And maybe the demon told these guys that I'm a witch, or a threat, or a terrorist or something! Oh! Oh. That. . .doesn't bode well for me. _

He whipped around and sank into a fighters stance as the men advanced on him, his back to the concrete wall. It wasn't going to be a fair fight – there were at least ten, maybe fifteen guys with _guns_ pointed at him – but seeing as how they hadn't shot him quite yet he assumed they must want him alive for something. It wouldn't be good, he knew that. Still, something about his theory didn't quite work for him and it was the demon's eyes. They'd been scared – no, terrified_ –_ at the very sight of him. A swell of pride rose unbidden as he swiftly swept one man's feet out from under him. Yep, Aunt Phoebe had taught him that one.

Back to the demon, though. Anyone that scared wouldn't have planned all this out, so that meant there was probably a big, evil mastermind somewhere out there, and if Chris had any hope of getting out of this with his normal life still intact he would have to find him. Or her.

Suddenly Chris decided he didn't care. Exposure, personal gain consequences, whatever! He was going to orb away. He was _not _going to be used as a pawn in some demon's big scheme, and especially not if the demon was going to do something to his family. His family was off limits. Chris really would've left. He would've genuinely exposed magic in front of the weird group of 'soldiers' in front of him.

It's too bad he never got the chance. Despite the great martial arts skills he'd learned over the years (from family, teachers, and experience), there were simply too many and before he had a moment to orb without taking someone with him, he missed one of them coming up behind him. He'd shifted his back for just a moment and...

SMACK! A blinding, red pain clouded Chris's vision as he slumped to the ground. The guy had hit him on the head with his gun! He'd actually tried to knock him out like they did in movies! Didn't that guy know how easily you could give someone brain damage that way, or even kill them? It was pure, writhing agony, but it wasn't enough to knock him out. He almost wished it had been.  
"Oww..." He moaned. His head lolled to the side as two men grabbed his arms and began to drag him along. Thoughts had stopping flowing with any sort of clarity and were replaced by random, vague facts instead. Facts were better than nothing, right? Okay, so...

His head hurt. A lot. The men holding him up were not being very gentle. His head really hurt. Now they were climbing into some sort of truck and shoving him into the back of it, accidentally jarring his head in the process. His head hurt more now. Abruptly, the pain dimmed a little as they put the cloth over his nose again.

In a vague, uninterested manner he remembered he shouldn't breathe it in – yet the pain dominating his brain had convinced his lungs they needed to work extra hard, and he couldn't resist more than a few seconds.

Better. The pain was lessening. Slowly he felt his brain grow lighter and lighter until he suspected it would just fly away. But the world was growing darker, too. It became darker and darker, and then Christopher Halliwell knew no more.

Not until he woke up in a room, with no idea what was going on...

* * *

10:44 PM

Bennett Sobilo had always been a curious person. Even when he passed the acceptable age of wondering 'why' he still asked the question again and again. Why was the sky blue? Why did the seasons change? Why was the grass green? Why, why, why?

He never grew out of his curious nature – if anything, age only strengthened his desire to understand the universe. He dissected frogs, pulled apart computers, and he examined everything around him with an excited, eager eye. All he ever wanted was to find an answer to his perpetual question; all he wanted was to stop asking _why_.

That wasn't so bad, was it? To want to know how everything worked? Wasn't that the dream of every scientist?

Bennett never thought of himself as a bad person – not when he'd started _enjoying _slicing open dead animals, and not when he'd started hiring actual mercenaries, and _murderers_ – and even though he was now getting into things other's would call cruel, or evil, surely the ends justified the means! Surely the advances he was making in science would overrule his slightly illegal experiments. It didn't make him evil. It didn't make him bad.

Bennett smoothed an escaped black hair and pasted a friendly smile onto his pale face. Normally he wouldn't have bothered, but today he needed to look controlled and confident for his people. He felt the sleek limo slow and then stop as the driver parked perfectly outside the building. A glance at his expensive watch told him what he already knew; he was late. No matter. It was his company, his operation, and _his _idea – they were simply early, was all. The driver opened his door, and, exiting the car, Bennett stared with pride up at his facility. It was not as tall as some, but it made up for it with its length, strong structure, and ideal location. Though it was slightly out in the country it wasn't enough to cause suspicion, or look out-of-the-ordinary, and best yet – it was built over where five witches were allegedly burned at the stake. No proof discovered, seeing as it had been a couple hundred years since the event, but it struck fear into the older generation townsfolk. It seemed appropriate, considering what they were planning to do.

Taking a deep breath to contain his excitement, he let the man open the front door for him – glass, expensive, and the best of the best, of course – and he strode in lazily, like he couldn't care less about when he saw what he'd been dreaming of for _years_. A witch. A real, magical, evil witch.

With a trained eye, he scanned the room for his top scientist, a tall, blond man with a love for theatrics, who was also happened to be incredibly brilliant and reliable.

"Ah, Emory." He greeted as the man walked up to him quickly, obviously having spotted him the moment he'd come in.

"Mr. Sobilo." Emory impatiently acknowledged. "You're late. You must come quickly, there is much to be done and little time to –"

Bennett let out a loud, deep chuckle and patted his friend on the back.

"Must you turn everything into something suspenseful, my friend?"

Emory tossed his pony-tail length hair over his shoulder and scowled, crossing his arms in annoyance.

"Sobilo, it's only a matter of time before the police are called. We must study it while we can and –"

Ah, so the government was making him sweat.

Bennett interrupted him again. "The boy is a witch. His family isn't going to call the police first – they're going to think something magical took him. They won't even _consider _the authorities for at least a week."

The blond man looked furious at being cut off twice, though nonetheless nodded reluctantly, forced to realize the logic of his words. Arrogant he might be but he did listen most of the time.

"You still could've hurried up." He snapped, spinning theatrically on his heel and striding away with his nose in the air.

With a frown, Bennett followed his employee and thought about the reason it had taken him so long; a meeting. A meeting with the same interested party that had given him a good deal of information on these abominations. It hadn't been on purpose, had it? They hadn't delayed him for a reason, surely?

No, he decided, strolling through corridor after corridor. No, there would be no point in doing that, of course not! The witch was still in his possession and he was still undiscovered.

"Better hope it's still asleep." Emory muttered ahead of him. "Nothing we give it seems to do much of anything."

Bennett had to take another deep breath, and yet his reply still sounded breathless.

"Extraordinary."

They stopped at a large metal door, the window next to it revealing a small, white room – devoid of anything but a chair and a table. And there was the boy.

Sliding the card that always hung on his neck by a lanyard through the machine, and pressing a few buttons on the key pad, Emory opened the door. A glance through the bulletproof glass – glass that showed into the room but not out – told Bennett that Emory was right. The boy was waking up.

Had he possibly gotten himself into something dangerous? Something had might even get him killed? No. Surely not.

The bit of doubt that had crept into Bennett's mind vanished as he walked into the room though; the boy was strapped down, chained – by Emory's smirk, it was his doing – and barely conscious. Nothing to worry about.

"It's fascinating." He whispered, bending down to examine the specimen more closely. It was little different from the frog to him; only this time there would be more to dissect. More to learn. More to _destroy_...  
Suddenly the boy moaned and started to strain against his bonds. There was squeak from behind, telling the man that Emory had jumped back in fear. Bennett didn't move away, though. This was what he'd always wanted, this was what he'd dreamed about. He was finally going to know _why._ He was not going anywhere anything soon.

"Emory," He called, not taking his eyes off of his beloved prize. "Which tests have you run on him yet?"

Though he couldn't see the man, he heard a scoff, and knew Emory was rolling his eyes.

"By the time you got here? We probably could've run all of them." He replied snarkily..

"Emory." Bennett's voice suddenly held a dangerous, warning tone to it. It was more than enough to shut the drama queen up for minute or two. He swore, if that man wasn't one of the most brilliant scientific minds in America...

"Get me the results immediately." He ordered, ignoring Emory's reluctant stomping out of the room. Ah. Now it was just him and...

"The witch."

Reaching over to grab a clean, filled syringe from the table behind the chair, Bennett eyed the dosage carefully, then slowly rolled up the boy's sleeve to inject him with it. He noted several recent marks on the skin, meaning they had already given this boy an unhealthy amount drugs. That wouldn't do – he needed the boy alive and...relatively well. Slowly he pressed the syringe down, emptied the liquid into the witch's system and sat back, watching as his prisoner's wild movements gradually calmed down. Hmm...they were going to have to figure something else out to keep him secured. Something less extreme. But in the meantime...  
"Shall we see what you are, witch?" He murmured softly to the unconscious boy. The boy gave a low groan, but didn't stir again. His brown hair was tousled and dirty with what looked like dried blood, his once (must've been) handsome face was bruised and bloody, and his wrists were raw from straining for freedom. In his casual blue t-shirt and worn jeans he didn't look particularly special. Didn't appear to be anything more than a beat-up teen.

Bennett knew better.

"Now, let's see what makes you tick." He smiled. All he could think as he snapped on a pair of gloves, pulled on his white lab coat, and carefully chose a sharp, gleaming tool from the table next to him, was that he was finally going to know the answer to his life-long question; why.

He didn't even care anymore that it was wrong.

* * *

**A/N**; For the record I researched (Read: typed it into google) chloroform and it doesn't really have a sweet smell. I was simply too lazy to edit this.

Sorry my OC Bennett isn't that evil. The big mastermind is, though! I just hope his plan wasn't too terribly elaborate.

About my inconsistent updating...Sorry? I can promise you we're finally getting somewhere, so yeah! Woo hoo! Also please review! I love reviews and they motivate me to update quicker. I was a little miffed - love using that word :D - when no one reviewed last chapter.

See you next time, guys!


	7. Struggles and Complications

Hey. Thank you guys so much for reading this and to all of you that have faved/followed. You're awesome! Can you believe it? Ten reviews and I'm only on the seventh chapter! Yay! BTW, I don't really like this chapter, so be prepared for some serious edits later on.

**Edited: 4/19/13**

**Dominus Trinus**: Thank you! I happen to really like Chris, but I know that Charmed is a show that's all about being a family, and that's fine. I love them all. I'm glad you like it and I really appreciate the long review - those are my favorite. :) Hope you keep reading!

**Miss Dunkelbunt**: Thanks. :) Sorry it took a month or two! Please keep reading!

**only-semi-clueless**: Thank you. Lol, yes, this fandom just loves to torture that poor neurotic whitelighter. Sorry, I wanted to get this out sooner but I didn't like a scene so I had to rewrite the whole thing. Hope you keep on reading!

**TV Manic 2**: ^^ Thanks! I was kinda surprised that instead of disliking her, or even simply not caring, several people have said they really enjoyed both Biancas. That's great!

**Disclamer - I don't know Charmed or any of the characters; they just happen to live in my head. **

Please review!

* * *

November 16, 2021

11:52 PM

The world had gone and set itself on fire. Everything sizzled, burned, and ached, and Chris was lost as to where the fire ended and he began. He hissed as he dragged another foot in front of the other and the hallway darkened even further. Maybe it was just becoming night. Oh, wait, it couldn't be night – it ought to be morning by now. That meant it was his vision and he was on the verge of cool, blissful unconsciousness. If it wouldn't have caused him tremendous pain, he would've let out a snort.

Chris almost wished everything really _was _on fire – there was no way it could hurt any less, right? But as it was, moving forwards, _not _crying like a baby, and staying awake was already hurting like Hell. His chest screamed at every breath, his head couldn't twitch without causing his eyes to water, and the fire on his arms seemed to be only encouraged by the air moving past them; like he said, everything hurt.

"Come on, Chris," He tried to whisper through gritted teeth. He pressed his shaking hands along the white wall to keep himself upright, and winced when he saw a faint trail of red behind them. Too bad he had to rely on the wall to simply walk forwards – it wasn't as if he was trying not to be found, or anything.

"Come on...you can do this..." He muttered, wincing as he attempted a calming deep breath. "All you gotta do...is think up a spell..."  
Abruptly, he realized he was speaking aloud and snapped his mouth shut. Scanning the hallway revealed no other persons, so he let his held breath go in relief. If someone had heard that he was as good as caught again. And Chris _never _wanted to be caught again.

He forced himself to swallow back horrific thoughts of his captivity, but he could not suppress a frightened shudder. It made him furious and humiliated at the same time; Christopher Halliwell didn't _do _frightened. Or shudders. Growing up, the teen had seen everything from banshees, to manticores, to vampires, and nothing had ever freaked him out more than the creatures that ran this cold, cruel place.

They were...humans. How could he even begin to process that? How could he ever understand that humans, or 'innocents' – the people he was meant to _protect_ – would experiment him as easily as though he were some dead animal?

No, he didn't know how to accept that. All he wanted to do was to go home, get healed by Wyatt, and sleep until every painful, stumbling step of this whole journey became a really awful nightmare. Humans...no. No way.

The Wyatt-voice in his head helpfully pointed out that the shapeshifter who'd obviously distracted him so he could get kidnapped was working with them, and he'd been a demon.

Chris scowled, dark thoughts swirling about the creature. If he ever found that lowlife piece of scum that had caused this he was going to vanquish him, and then bring him back to life just so he could vanquish him again!

The last thing the injured teen expected as he limped down the hallway 'sneakily', plotting unwhitelighter-like vengeance, was a faint ringing, like a bell, to sound. He jumped, then stood stock still. He barely dared to breathe – the noise seemed to echo loudly across the walls and throughout the whole facility, taking with it Chris's location. What was it? And why was it coming from _him_?! Then he paused, confused about why this ringing was 'ringing a bell' (pun intended), and blew out a sizable relieved sigh as he placed it, never mind the rising migraine in his already pounding head. It wasn't ringing he was hearing – it was _jingling_. Like a charge did when they called for him, or were in danger. Thankfully, as far as the witch-lighter could tell jingling could only be heard by magical folk – witches and whitelighters, mostly – meaning he probably _wasn't _going to be found too soon. You know, unless someone happened to walk down his particular hallway and look to the left. Not really too hard to do, or anything.

Despite the fact that he was still kicking himself for not recognizing the irritating sound even in a drugged haze with a (possible) concussion, he managed to find the added pressure in his head annoying, calming, and a little worrisome. All at the same time.

Technically he only had two charges at the moment (his family ought to count for the amount of headaches they'd caused him) and 'technically' one wasn't speaking to him right now. It was something he'd done, supposedly, but he didn't know what. So that meant it must've been (must _be –_ the sound was just getting louder) Teresa, the to-be whitelighter, and currently-was a bratty little girl. He groaned as the jingles slowly started to become repeated cries of his name.

_Chris! Chris, I need you! Chris! Please, Chris? _

As much as he wanted to leave the horrid place, he couldn't. Not to help his charge, not to help himself, not to do anything. The first thing he'd tried was orbing out of the restraints; and then he'd tried it again, then attempted his telekinesis, and then he'd tried shouting for his brother in a girly panic. He wouldn't have regretted the last one so much if it had worked.

Truthfully, the Halliwell had found it bone-chillingly terrifying that his magic had apparently ceased to work and he'd somehow slipped from Wyatt's hearing, but he wasn't about to admit it to himself. A part of him was simply, almost _stubbornly_, insisting that it was the drugs they'd administered to him that was blocking his abilities. Somehow. The cleverer, dominating part was already pushing this explanation aside and searching frantically for a better one. One that would make sense of this whole debacle he'd found himself in.

Surely he had all the pieces and clues he needed, and the only thing left to do was to arrange and fit them together to make...what? Some big puzzle?

_Chris! Come on, you stupid-head! I know you can hear me. _His charge had seemingly forgotten how to show some patience. Or empathy. Or remember when and how to give up.

Deciding it was definitely worth another try – to relieve some of the pain in his temples if not to escape – Chris surveyed the long hallway first for a hiding place (no luck), then for any people, and closed his eyes to focus. He breathed in deep, searching inside for that special, beautiful warmth, that ever-present feeling that was his whitelighter half. With a small smile, his eyes still closed, Chris found it and proceeded to tug with all his might. Nothing happened. Poking an eye opened revealed the same stinking white hallway. No shower of white and blue lights, no relaxing feeling on standing still and flying at the same time, no home, no Teresa's home, no _nothing. _He could _feel _the power bubbling beneath the surface – it simply wasn't coming out. Why? Why?! It was too frustrating for him _not_ to let out a disappointed groan, and he sagged further against the once spotless white wall.

To be honest he just wanted to slide to the floor and cry pathetically. It hurt – everything hurt.

_Chris! I really, really need you!_

No. Oh, no, that wasn't fair – now guilt was seeping in through every pore, twinging painfully in his already aching chest. There was nothing he could do for her.

_I need help, too! _He wanted to shout back at her, but the girl wouldn't have heard him – just like Wyatt _couldn't_ hear him. Wait a minute. Wyatt was the Twice Blessed, one of, if not _the_, most powerful good witches on the planet and a dang good whitelighter to boot – so what (barring the underworld) could be preventing him from sensing or hearing Chris? _Even mortals can call for him. _He thought, frowning. _So something isn't just blocking _my _magic, it must also be blocking his. Or at least his whitelighter half._

And then he whacked himself in the forehead and almost fainted. Very few things could mess with the Twice Blessed's magic, but he knew of plenty of things that could mess with a whitelighter's. It wasn't that hard, actually. If you knew where to look.

"Stupid...stupid...stupid..." He berated himself, puncturing each insult with a small hit to the head. It was small because he didn't want to in any way jar his beat-up head.

Slowly, from the depths of his mind, he pulled every word to one of the many spells he'd learned by heart, suspecting that while drugs were affecting his telekinesis, something else was preventing his orbing. Probably the very same thing that was stopping Wyatt from hearing him, too.

Hey, maybe it would work, maybe it wouldn't, but it was definitely worth attempting. What did he have to lose? You know, other than hope, or the spell backfiring, or someone barging down the hallway and seeing him...seeing him _performing _magic, no less.

"Guided spirits,

hear our plea,

Anul this magic,

Let it be." He uttered. It shouldn't have been so crushing when he reopened his eyes to find, for the second time, that he had failed in his endeavors. Yet it was. The weary boy sighed as he remembered the need for a lit candle and the burning of the spell written on a paper, none of which he happened to have in the hallway, with his dirty t-shirt and bloody jeans. They'd also taken the contents of his pockets – a pen and scratch paper for times _like these _and his iPhone – which really ticked him off. He'd just gotten the phone a month ago!...after his last one had been smashed by a giant, angry blue snake. Long story.

So, recapping; he had no orbing, no telekinesis, no Wyatt, no candles, no spells, no map, and he was likely be to seen at any second.

_Great. Happy birthday, Chris. _He thought sarcastically. _It's good to be seventeen. _

* * *

9:13 PM

"...and he asked the waitress to go back and fix it _three times. _I very nearly went out there myself to give him a piece of my mind."  
"But you didn't? You didn't freeze him, or blow him up, or anything?"  
"...Er.._no_..."  
"Wow. You're really getting a hold of your temper, Piper."

"...Umm-hmm."

Wyatt paid their conversation no mind as he placed a hand on Paige's arm, flashed an innocent smile at his mother, and asked, "Can I borrow Aunt Paige for a moment? Thanks, Mom."

Without waiting for a reply he dragged his youngest Aunt out of Piper's earshot.

The eldest Halliwell sister gave a bewildered look at them as they passed, but otherwise shrugged it off; Halliwell's had always been weird. She doubted it was completely connected to their magic, though.

"What is it, Wyatt?" Paige asked when they reached an empty corner, raising an eyebrow at her nephew. Usually if there was something he couldn't discuss in front of Piper it meant something magical was going on – something that was probably going to tick her off.

But this wasn't something definitely magical. It wasn't concrete. This issue wasn't something he could prove was even real, let alone if it was serious.

"Umm... I have a question to ask you." Wyatt began, trying to think of how to ask it without actually...asking anything. Because what if Chris was really Chris? What if it was something normal and human, and he worried Paige for nothing?

"So let's say...I have a friend. Who's acting strange." He said. Paige crossed her pale arms over her chest and waited patiently for him to continue. The blond was pretty sure she wasn't buying this since he had to be the worst liar _ever_, but she hadn't stopped him yet.

"Okay, well, let's say, in this hypothetical situation, that I think maybe it's not them. Maybe it's...I don't know, a shapeshifter, or something, but I don't have proof and I don't want to accidentally hurt them. How ca-er, _could_ I be sure?"

Her raised eyebrow went even higher. For a moment, Wyatt thought she was going to simply call Piper and Phoebe over and demand to know what magical mess he'd gotten himself into as of late.

Yet all she said was, "Well, I'm not sure. I don't think there's really a specific test for that." She scratched her head for a second before perking up.  
"But a simple mandrake potion would vanquish them. So – _hypothetically_ – all you'd have to do is make one and slip it to 'em. Or you could just ask them something only they would know." She added as an after thought.

"Right!" He exclaimed sheepishly. He'd known that. Honest. As he made to walk away, her hand shot out and clamped down on his arm. A large groan was barely stifled. Why couldn't they ever just let things go?

"Wait just a second, mister. Who do you suspect of being a shapeshifter?" She demanded.

"Nobody!" He answered a little too quickly.

"Wyatt, I wasn't born yesterday." Irritation swelled up inside him, and it made him blurt something he didn't mean to out.

"No, you were born a looong time ago."

He clapped his hands over his mouth and stared on in fear. It just came out! He hadn't meant to sound like his brother, really!

A scowl marred her usually pretty face, anger flashing in her narrowed brown eyes.

"Okay, Chris is starting to be a bad influence on you." She declared. Wyatt hesitated in his apology, waiting for her to get mad at him. It wasn't going to be good. Yet after a moment of tense quiet, she merely glared at him, sighed, and then walked away, hands fingering the lines around her eyes worriedly.

"I'm not that old..." She could be heard mumbling. It was actually really lucky she was so sensitive about that, otherwise she would've pressed him for more information The blond teen choked down a girlish giggle as he watched her concerned expression and reminded himself to do something nice for her later. She wasn't old, really. Only to young people.

_Wyatt! _Snapped the voice in his head that sounded like Chris. _Focus, here!_

Okay. He took a deep breath and let it out, scanning the crowd for his little brother. All of a sudden he didn't feel very sure about this. What if he was over-reacting? What if his was completely wrong and Chris was going to torment him about this for months? Well...better safe than sorry, right?

There. Chris was 'covertly' escaping general conversation and moving towards the restroom of P3. Wyatt couldn't help but notice the younger Halliwell's green orbs darting, in paranoia, at everyone in the place as though they were going to attack him at any moment. Alright, that was weird, even for Chris.

Almost humming a secret agent tune underneath his breath, the Twice Blessed tried to blend in with the crowd and sneak towards the boy unnoticed, earning quite a few odd stares for his efforts. Stealth wasn't his thing. That was okay – being awesome was.

Abruptly Wyatt cocked his head to the side, like a puzzled puppy. Chris had gone into the back-room, instead of the restroom like he'd suspected. What was he doing back there? What was even _back _there? It didn't really matter, he supposed, and followed with a small shrug to himself.

The wooden door was cool to his touch and opened with a small, telling squeak, and suddenly Wyatt found himself two inches from intense, familiar emerald eyes. He gasped, stumbling back a step. _You are the Twice Blessed, Wyatt! _He scolded himself. _And that's just your brother! _

Hmm. The latter was up for debate.

"Chris, you s..._didn't _scare me. At all." He denied. His racing heart begged to differ, though.

"You followed me." The brown-haired teen pointed out blankly. There was no triumphant smirk, no laughter hidden in his eyes, not even a sarcastic tone to his words – nothing that rubbed in the fact that he'd successfully surprised his brother. Wasn't that interesting?

"Er, no." Wyatt lied again, forcing down the feeling that the truth was written all over his face. "I was just going to the back room. For fun. Umm-hmm. Yep. Definitely."

Wyatt noted as the boy's mouth tightened and his expression hardened into a full scowl; it screamed impatience. What did he have to do that couldn't wait?

_If you're already cataloging every strange look on his face, I'd say some part of you is completely sold on this 'shapeshifter' thing. _Said his Chris-conscience-voice-thing (When you live with people for seventeen years your mind starts to borrow their voice. It's fact, not insanity.) in his head.

"You shouldn't be here." The fake-Chris all but snarled at him. Oh my. Was it just him, or was this impostor just getting pathetic?

"Yeah? Why?" Wyatt asked calmly, folding his arms over his chest. "Are you doing something you shouldn't?"

The word 'torn' might as well have been scrawled across the boy's forehead in bright red sharpie. It was sort of fun to watch the boy struggle with himself for several moments before he simply threw his hands up and shot a glare at the taller teen. Scratch that – it was _really _fun. Was this how demons felt when they pretended to be mortals and looked on, knowing witches' secrets?

"I'm...I'm...escaping the party." He scrambled to come up with an excuse. "Because it's stupid."

Maybe it was, but that didn't explain the weird (fearful?) gleam to his little brother's eyes. The Twice Blessed forced a knowing smirk off of his face.

"But Chris, didn't you promise you were going to be fun this year? You know, not all broody and stuff?" If Chris had really been Chris, he would've heard the condescending tone to his questions as clear as day.

"Yeah, right!" But he didn't. So Wyatt decided he'd gained enough 'proof' and swore if he was wrong he would apologize to his brother a million times later, and slammed the boy against the wall.

BAM! The boy let out a high-pitched yelp as Wyatt drew closer.

Oh, yes. There was definitely fear in 'Chris's' eyes.

"Who are you, and what did you do to my little brother?" He snarled. The boy squirmed but couldn't seem to tear his gaze from Wyatt's, trying in the meantime to look innocent.

"W-Wyatt, what are you doing? It's me! Chris!"

Wyatt's eyes narrowed dangerously.

"Prove it." He demanded, tightening his grip on the boy's shirt. Surely Chris, who'd actually gone through this several times before, would have some memory or other that only they shared that would completely prove his brother was simply being paranoid. Of course, he knew that this Chris had no such thing - he wasn't real, after all.

It didn't take Sherlock Holmes to notice the despair rising in the imposter's orbs, or the way his head slumped to his chest in defeat. What Wyatt failed to see, however, was the way the shapeshifter's hands curled into fists, ready to fight. Ready to flee.

"Ok. You got me." The not Chris admitted in defeat. "I'm not really Chris." This time Wyatt couldn't prevent a satisfied smirk – er, _smile _– from spreading across his features as triumph settled in his chest comfortably. Chris always told him not to get cocky – too bad he never listened.

Then the shapeshifter's fist shot out and clipped him in the nose, and in surprise the blond teen let him go.

"OW!"

It was a big mistake. Before he could even blink the demon had shimmered away, and he was left holding his nose in an empty back room. No demon, no Chris, and possibly a broken nose. Great. Just great.

A muffled, "Dannh it!" could be heard resounding over the music of the club.

* * *

November 18. 2021

12:34 PM

Bianca was extremely surprised when she found herself eating an unattractive amount of chocolate and laughing – snorting, really – while it was neither with Chris, nor was it in a dream.

"This seems too good to be real." She mumbled to herself as she picked up her bowl of cocoa puffs and walked to the kitchen window, cradling the cereal in her arms.

_What? You've never been in a ugly, messy kitchen before? _The other Bianca, er 'Nicole' asked disbelievingly. They both knew that wasn't what she meant. Neither clarified nor corrected.

The assassin-witch gazed with wonder at the peaceful scene outside; the birds chirping in their trees, the neighborhood children playing ball a few houses down, and the nearly cloudless blue sky promising another such beautiful day tomorrow.

It was a scene out of a television show, or a dream, or–or something! With her free hand she touched the window pane, as if to reach out and feel whether or not the world was real.

"It's perfect." She whispered, feeling another round of tears well up in her eyes. Well, now, that simply wouldn't do. Quickly the teen brushed them away and strolled back to the kitchen table, where she started shoveling the rest of the chocolaty goodness down her throat.

The small book lay open next to her on the table where she'd left it – on the page of the Memory spell. It was still a complete mystery how a seemingly straightforward spell would turn out like this. It shouldn't have happened. _She _shouldn't have happened! So why was she sitting there, acting like everything was normal, and eating a bowl of cereal?

_You never know. _Nicole spoke up again. Luckily she either hadn't noticed Bianca's emotional lapse or she knew enough to pretend not to.

_Like I said before, it could be destiny. Or fate. Or whatever the heck runs this thing._

Bianca swallowed her last bite painfully, choosing to send a harsh glare back to her counterpart.

"Destiny has never _anything_ for me." She growled. "Why would she start now?"  
_Umm...did you just say 'she'? _

This was ignored as Bianca sipped her water absently. Suddenly she shot up from her chair (nearly spilling her glass in the process) and glanced around the house nervously.  
"Hey, Bi-er, Nicole, about your dad," She began.

_He really does sing like a strangled walrus, I promise –_

"No, that's not – I wanted to ask...when does he come back?"

There was an uncomfortable pause in which no sound was made. Even the clock seemed to hesitate in its ticking.

"What?" She snapped, her nerves heightening her irritability.

_I don't really know. Heh heh. _Nicole replied, her answer accompanied by the image of a sheepish smile.

Bianca scowled, but instead of arguing further she simply closed her eyes and tried to focus on her, er _their _life. Her counterpart's memories of this last year, specifically.

...They were all...fuzzy...

Uncomfortable, too, as if she were trying on a pair of jeans that were just a bit too tight, or shoes that squished her feet the tiniest bit. It just wasn't her.

"This is..weird.." She muttered, random pictures flashing through her mind. She felt the cool water of the swimming pool as she dived in to fend off the summer heat. She shrieked as her friends ruined her hair with armfuls of colorful leaves. And the wet, cold snowball her father sent down her neck put chills down her spine, even though the house was not even cool.

"No, stop." She tried to back out of the images as they threatened to overwhelm her. "Stop."

But the worst was over; the pictures faded the more she blinked, and soon enough the kitchen came back into view.

A sick, yellow wallpaper surrounded everything, the tiny island that sat next to the dishwasher turned from an orange blob to a defined square, and the flowers on the wooden table were finally determined to be dead. She was back to the present. The teen let out a shaky sigh as she leaned back in her chair.

"It's too much." She whispered, more to herself –._just _herself, no alternative versions – than anyone else.

_Perhaps you were wrong. _Nicole's voice was soft, as if she knew not to be overwhelming now. _Perhaps we're not 'one' or whatever not because we don't want to be – maybe we just don't fit. _

"Like...like it wasn't meant to happen?" Bianca struggled to think clearly. Her thoughts were still jumbled from the new memories. "But that implies something else set this up, something besides destiny."  
_Well...it's possible. I guess. But you never know, the spell could've done exactly what we asked. _I _asked. Just...in a roundabout way._

"No." Bianca said firmly. "I doubt even the worst witch in the world could've caused this accidentally."

_Thanks, Bianca. Really. You know you just insulted yourself, right? _

"How was that an insult?" She protested.

_You know, you possess a man's sensitivity. _

"And you're an idiot."

…_.Says the girl who didn't finish high school._

"It blew up." She retorted. "What was I supposed to do? Learn Trig in the rubble?"  
Nicole decided they ought to move on. They were never going to get anywhere exchanging semi-witty banter.

_Alrighty - we need to get some help. We clearly aren't getting any closer to figuring this out by ourselves...myself? Hm...s-so we need to um, find someone who'd be willing to lend a hand._

Bianca ran her hands through her hair and dug them into her scalp, letting her head fall against the chair with a weary sigh. At first she didn't reply, choosing instead to close her eyes and massage her temples slowly. Though Nicole wanted to push, she squirmed impatiently and forced herself to wait for her other self. After all, it'd been a long morning for them both. It was going to take some time for either one to adjust.

Finally the teen opened her brown orbs again and reluctantly sat up.

"We do need some help." She admitted with obvious distaste. "But I really..._really_ don't like asking for it. Especially not from my kind of contacts."

Nicole huffed indignantly from inside their shared mind.

_I wasn't suggesting we go to _your _kind of help. I have people too, you know! _

Bianca's raised eyebrow expressed all of her doubt effectively. No condescending words were necessary.

_I do! _She insisted. _Really, I have this friend, Mara, who works in this magic shop that I buy ingredients for potions from, and she knows everything there is to know about curses, and jinxes, and spells gone wrong __–_ she can totally help us!

Bianca's tone was horribly skeptical as she pushed away from the table, and shut the small tome with a snap.

"Really, now? This wasn't a curse or a jinx, Nicole. This is something way bigger than that. I don't think we should be involving mortals, or petty witches _–_"

_Hey! She's a _great_ witch! _

"_–_ and that's just another reason not to consult her because in case you've forgotten, Nicole, we're a _demon_!"

That brought the silence she'd wanted. The quiet she'd needed. But suddenly, Bianca couldn't stop arguing. It was all too much and all the anger, frustration, and confusion she felt overwhelming her since this morning, she took out on the naïve little school-girl. Why should she be so innocent?! It wasn't fair! It was who they were and Nicole was pretending like it didn't matter, as if it were unimportant.

Before she knew it she was screaming at herself like a madwoman.

"We are evil, Nicole, and there isn't anything you can do to escape your destiny! It's in our blood. We are destined to hurt mortals, to maim, to _kill, _to steal powers and wreak havoc all over the world! You think you can just live here and go to school, j-just _pretending _to be normal? Pretending you don't get a rush doing magic, pretending you don't feel exhilarated when you use your talents, when you _murder _another of your kind!

"I may not be able to hold it all in my head but I've felt it and I know you have too! You look at mortals and you wonder, you think what would happen if you hurt them. Would that same feeling bubble up? Would it feel good? It would, and you know why? We are _evil_! Pure evil, and that's never going to change and you know it!"

Suddenly she became aware that hot, scorching tears were pouring down her cheeks in an alarmingly fast rate, and her breath was coming in short, horrible-sounding gasps as if she'd almost drowned. Yet the worst was the tight knot of pain in her chest that grew worse with every movement. Why did it hurt so badly? Why were her hands shaking? And why was she on her knees in the middle of the kitchen floor?

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." She whispered. Like a small child she curled up on her self and clutched at the cold, tile floor as if it were her teddy bear. When had she become so pathetic and sad? And when had she become so cruel?

No response, angry or otherwise, came from her abnormally quiet counterpart. Why had she said such awful things, again? The vortex of pain inside her held no answers.

Slowly, she tried to put into words what she was feeling _–_ though whether it was to explain to Nicole or to herself was a mystery. Mainly, she decided, it was to ward off the excruciating silence.

"I'm...I'm really scared." She struggled to say. Stupid tears. "I can't..I don't...I died. But now I'm here. I'm _so _scared, Nicole, because I shouldn't be here."  
A small, almost non-existent stirring could be felt in the back of her mind that meant someone was listening. Good. That was good. Taking strength from that thought, she attempted to continue.

"I-I know I shouldn't be here. I am...messed up, _so _messed up and-and...you don't need me here, I know...but I'm so scared because no one will remember me...

"I'm petrified that I'm going to die again. Back in my world, I was alright, because even though I'd killed, I was on the right side but in this one...I really am evil, Nicole. I'm a monster."  
She blew out a wet sigh. Cataloging her fears and emotions was such a pain - why couldn't they just be nicely labeled out for her? Better yet, why couldn't they make sense?! Wouldn't that be nice? Still, she forged ahead with persistence because it needed to be done.

"I shouldn't have said those things." She said quietly, rubbing a tear from her eye. "I'm just terrified. I don't have anything anymore, Nicole. Not even this body. And I'm scared someone is going to come along and take it away from me...again. Because I really don't deserve it. I deserve hell."

Was that why she was being so hysterical? Huh. Didn't seem like the sort of thing she'd normally make a big fuss over. She must be getting soft. And squishy _–_ like a big, melting marshmallow.

Suddenly her other side spoke for the first time in minutes (it felt like hours, though) and soothed her frazzled nerves.

_You're not going anywhere, Bianca. _Came the soft, gentle reply. _But I promise that if you do...I will always remember you. _

A watery chuckle escaped Bianca's lips. Somehow the gratitude she so dearly wanted to express couldn't seem to make it past the block in her throat, so what came out instead was just a fatigued comment.

"Man, it's been a long day. And it hasn't even been a day yet." With a sleepy yawn, she wiped her runny nose on her sleeve and sighed. _This must be how idiotic, fragile teenage girls feel when their boyfriends breaks up with them._ She thought in short-spanned fascination. "I think I'm done with breakdowns now. I hope. There isn't an emotion left in me anymore."

_Good. Then maybe it's my turn to take a ride on the emotional roller-coaster that is, now, my life. Or is it our life? ...You know what, that's it – I'm giving up on pronouns forever!_

A frown settled in on Bianca's features as she noticed black encroaching on her vision, and her eyelids drooping as if she were extraordinarily tired. Not a whole angry rant ago she'd felt fine. Upset, but certainly not this sleepy.

"What's..."

..._happening?_

And suddenly the world spun round and round, colors blurring, the world getting dark, and right when she expected to throw up from the dizziness, it stopped. She blinked. But abruptly, it wasn't really _her _blinking. Just like it wasn't actually _her _getting up off the floor and brushing the dirt from her jeans, and it wasn't really _her _taking a deep breath and letting out a gusty sigh.

"Ugh. I probably look awful now." The teen commented, though it was something Bianca hadn't really wanted to say.

Bianca wasn't exactly trapped, nor was she exactly in control, because it _was _her doing these things; it just wasn't _her _her. Did that make sense?

The dread rising in her stomach added to what she was already suspecting - maybe they were closer to being 'one' than they thought.

* * *

November 16, 2021

9:49 PM

Piper wished she could stop wringing her hands. She wished she could stop scowling at the people she loved, and ranting like a crazy person, and blowing up things she'd only regret destroying later. But most of all, she wished she could still the horrible, lurching feeling in the pit of her stomach.

Her son was missing. _Chris_ was missing.

A twitch of her hands snapped shut Leo's open mouth as he'd surely come over just to comfort her – but she didn't want comfort. She wanted to vanquish something.

"PAIGE!" She screamed, tapping her foot impatiently. If _someone _didn't show up with _something _soon, her next victim would be one of her sisters. Thankfully, a shower of blue lights appeared seconds after she'd called for them, and formed into the youngest Halliwell sister. Oh, no. Piper thought.

Paige had that dreaded look in her eyes, the what-I'm-about-to-say-might-get-me-exploded-cause- Piper-won't-like-it look, and Piper felt her hands raise up an inch or two reflexively.

"So, um, was there anything in the club, or the car?" Paige asked with a falsely hopeful tone. Although Piper still considered it a ploy to not have her yelling at them for a while, she, Leo, and Wyatt had stayed to search the place for anything that might've been left behind by the shapeshifter, so they could use it to scry for him, and so Wyatt could explain everything he knew.

The only things he knew were worrisome things, though; like how he couldn't sense his brother, and didn't know quite how long Chris had been missing.

"Nothing. Just like I said there wouldn't be." Piper grumbled, crossing her arms over her chest. "You get anything?"  
Phoebe and Paige had been tasked with trying to locate the brown-haired boy using all the usual methods – scrying, spells, and potions.

"No." Paige answered with a sigh. If Piper had hoped for even a moment that they would work, she would've been sorely disappointed, too. But from what Wyatt had told her, all evidence pointed to Chris's kidnapping being a big, elaborate plan by some big bad. She really, _really _hated those.

"Come on. We need to search the book." Piper said tersely, jerking her head pointedly at both her husband and her son, who were a few feet away for safety. Wyatt nodded in understanding.

And with that, Piper grabbed Paige's arm and Wyatt grabbed Leo's, and they orbed back to the manor.

Maybe Piper had a dark sense of humor, but she had to stifle a chuckle as she materialized and saw Phoebe trying to poke and pinch her scrying arm awake. Reality soon returned though – it was to find Chris.

"Anything?" She asked, detangling herself from Paige and striding towards her other sister. A floorboard squeaked underneath her weight.

"Nuh-uh. Nothing." Phoebe replied. "It's kind of weird, though, cause for a second I thought I had him."

This surprised the eldest Halliwell sister, and her widened eyes showed it. Usually scrying was so cut and dry it either worked or they had to resort to more drastic measures to find it, and there wasn't ever any 'maybes' or 'thought it landeds' or anything so uncertain. This was different; this was new.

"Really? Where did you think it landed?" She peered anxiously at the many maps in front of the brunette. Some sent butterflies into her stomach. The entire U.S., South America, Europe...the solar system?! Where did Phoebe expect to find her son, on Mars?!

With her non-scrying hand, the younger Halliwell sister pointed to somewhere a little outside of town that was in the middle of nowhere, with no other building around. It was kind of an odd place for Chris to be, kidnapped or not.

"And the crystal actually landed here? Wait, when was this?!" Paige protested, having come up behind the two without Piper's notice.

"Just a second ago, when you when to get Piper." Phoebe said, but she didn't meet their eyes. Something was up.

"Pheebes..." Piper growled in warning.

Phoebe winced.

"Okay, so it didn't so much as _land _as it did _hesitate..._"

As Paige let out a groan, Piper ran a hand through her long hair and blew out a exasperated sigh. They were all tired and concerned for their Chris, and that meant they might start seeing what they wanted to see. If it didn't land, if Phoebe only _thought _she saw it, she may have simply imagined it. Still, the optimists of the family – Leo and Wyatt – jumped to defend the empath.

"It's worth checking out, though, right?" Wyatt argued.

"It couldn't hurt." Leo smiled.

Secretly, Piper didn't think it was worth getting her hopes up for, but nodded nonetheless – she, no, _they_, were going to tear the world apart to find their missing family member. And they had to start somewhere, right?

* * *

**A/N**: Just for clarification, this isn't all happening at once. Sorry if it's a little confusing, but Chris is currently ahead of everyone else time-wise. So while Wyatt was figuring out that Chris wasn't Chris (I imagine that after a couple of times of that happening the Halliwell's would be pretty paranoid, don't ya think?) the _real _Chris was busy being unconscious and experimented on. Fun stuff, right?

Chris: I hate you so much.

Kokoro: I know. ^^

Also, sorry if Bianca seems excessively emotional in this chapter, I just felt that coming back to life _–_ so to speak _–_ and finding yourself in a body not quite your own would be extremely traumatizing. Not to mention, from her point of view she'd just recently betrayed her fiancé. I think that would overwhelm even the toughest of assassin-witches, don't you? But don't worry though, she'll be kicking butt soon enough, trying to save her alternative universe boyfriend/fiancé.

Chris (whinning): Why do _I _have to be the damsel-in-distress?

Kokoro: Cause I'm the author. Now shut up.

One last thing! Promise. :D Everything will (probably) be explained in the next few chapters, so try to be patient.

Please review!


	8. Always One Step Ahead

A/N: I've recently edited the whole thing, going back and putting the date and time on them. It should clear up _most _of your confusion. Sorry about that. ^^; I also went on Charmed wikia and calculated out each Charmed One's kid's age (math and thinking is hard) and realized that they are a lot older than I thought they were, like 14 and 13. I guess I'll have to edit some more later. I apologize.

Thanks to everyone who reviewed, faved, and followed! I love you guys.

Review responses:

Loving Dragon1: Yeah, I'm sorry about that. I recently edited it and added times and dates to everything. I think that will help alot. I hope you keep reading! :)

wiccawhitewitchcharmedfan: Care to buy a period? No, I'm sorry, that was rude. :) Thanks so much for the review! And I'm not gonna spoil anything, but the other timeline is important in this fic...:D I hope you keep reading!

Neffy: Aw, that's so sweet! Thank you! I hope you keep on reading :)

charmedeva: As it turns out, I got a few things wrong about their ages. ^^; I went to Charmed wikipedia and calculated out (read: did simple addition) what everyone's age would be if Chris was turning seventeen and...

Wyatt – 18

Chris – turning 17

Mel – 14 (This one I think I got right)

P.J. or a.k.a. 'Lady Bug' – 14 (whoops)

Tamora – 14 (whoops again)

Kat – 14

Henry Jr. – 13

Parker – 12

Pandora – 8

I think I'll edit this later and fix my mistakes. Please keep on reading! :)

Crystalzap: Yeah, sorry. Fanfiction just loves to whump on Chris, don't we? Hope you keep reading anyway. ^^

Disclaimer - Blah, blah, blah, I own nothing

* * *

November 17, 2021

12:00 AM

He stared on in awe as, again, the boy murmured something indiscernible – some kind of rhyme, he thought – and the chains slid off as if they'd been cut. The straps opened as though no one had secured them. The boy himself seemed surprised to see his freedom, even muttering, "I can't believe that worked!" before staggering out of the chair. Bennett was pleased to see that their medicines and drugs had at least slowed the witch down, the boy forced to lean against the wall for support. Then he sucked in a deep breath and walked out the recently opened door. Bennett wasn't just shocked – he was frozen.

Solid metal chains, tough leather straps, a door only as difficult to open as a _bank vault_, and enough drugs to give a normal human serious, permanent damage. And this boy had gotten past all of it by... saying a few words.

"Sir..." His eyes flew up to meet the one disturbing him, fury in his black orbs.

"What?!" He snapped. Wasn't it enough that they had lost the boy? Now they had to interrupt him studying the last piece of evidence they had?

"Sir...camera twenty four sir...we've caught him."

All of his anger was forgotten in an excited inhale. He spun back to his computer and gleefully, easily, found the live feed from one of his many hall cameras.

"There he is..." He breathed, resisting the urge to pet the screen again. That was considered strange, even in their line of work, and he would not have any of his employees thinking he was not quite sane. That simply wouldn't do.

The camera showed the witch slowly limping down the hallway using the wall as a crutch, his red fingers, from where they'd obviously touched his wounds, making a nice trail along the wall. It was clear that the boy was breathing heavily and having a hard time pressing forwards.

"Go capture him again." He instructed the guard without breaking his eye contact with the screen. "But don't attack, or show yourselves, until my order."  
"Understood, sir."

Perhaps it was foolish to wait, but he had been promised a witch. A proper, real, magical witch. Bennett wanted to see if the witch would attempt any more magic to escape. Indeed, the thing had stopped several times already and closed his eyes, as though expecting something, yet each time nothing had happened – each time he'd opened them and let out a groan.

_Have I messed with its magic? _He wondered excitedly. _Is the key to blocking its magic connected with its motor functions?_

Suddenly the boy tripped over nothing and fell on his face, apparently his energy finally completely exhausted. He did not get up again.

The man waved his hand at the other guard always with him and the man obliged, touching a device in his ear, muttering the order to recapture the witch.

With a disappointed sigh, Bennett sat back in his chair and observed as the fatigued teen put up a rather pathetic fight against his men. No more magic was used.

"Is it because he's tired? Because of his head injury?" He mumbled to himself. Though this was technically good news, Bennett couldn't help but be discontented, like a child unimpressed by an old magic trick, craving something more...spectacular. Oh, well. He had seen the witch escape using a rhyme. He had seen the boy's binds fall away with only a few words and a rather magical looking POOF!

That would do. For now. How was he to know that there was another man behind him thinking the same thing?

* * *

November 16, 2021

10:31 PM

"I heard voices in the attic and –" A bandage wrapped around her hand, a few pieces of glass still stuck in her hair, and dried blood on her blouse, Melinda burst into the room to be met with confused stares. Hmm. Perhaps she should've at least put on a different shirt.

"Prudence Melinda Halliwell!" Her mother exclaimed, looking her up and down. "What have you been doing?!"

"What are _you_ guys doing?" She shot back. It had just been a diversionary tactic, but looking around showed that they _were_ actually doing something of interest. With a frown, she noted that her Aunt Phoebe was scrying with her head on the table, like she'd been doing it a while and knew it was pointless, and her other aunt, Paige, was making a very explosive potion in the corner. And her mother had been flipping frantically through the book like...Like something bad had happened.

"What's wrong?" She immediately demanded.

The two sisters that could make eye contact did that thing, that secret do-you-think-we-should-tell-her-and-if-so-you-shou ld-be-the-one-to-do-it glance at each other that they always did. Oh, how Melinda hated that look.

Then Paige just sighed and beckoned her niece over.

"Come on, get over here and let me heal that. I'll tell ya." She grumbled, ignoring Piper's glare. Obediently the girl strode over to her aunt, hand outstretched.

"Who are you scrying for?" She directed this question at Phoebe – her best bet for getting to the bottom of this quickly – and had to twist her head around to watch for a reaction.

"I don't know even anymore." Was the weary, muffled response from the empath. Either convinced it wasn't going to ever work, or the ache in her outstretched arm finally becoming too much to bear, Phoebe dropped the crystal and brought both arms under her head with a loud moan.

Someone tapped on Melinda's shoulder. She whirled around to find Paige rolling her eyes at her, and realized her hand was healed; there was no more need to hold it out there.

"What are you making a potion for?" She tried again. Hadn't the woman promised to tell her only a moment ago? Ugh, the pain of being the youngest.

"Well, honey..." The witch-lighter did the look thing with her sister for a second time.

"Don't 'honey' me."

Paige smiled faintly, clearly thinking of the similarities between Piper and her daughter. This was short-lived.

"I'm sorry. Look, it's just...we kinda, uh..."

"Lost." Piper supplied helpfully.

"Yeah, _lost..._Chris." Paige explained.

Melinda blinked. But Chris was smart, he had powers, he could orb, and he could call for help! How did they 'lose' him? How _could _they lose him?

"What do you mean?" Mel had wanted the question to sound angry, demanding; instead it came out small and uncertain.

Demons and creatures and stuff were fine, vanquishing was fine. In fact, Mel had been kidnapped, possessed, and had her body stolen – and that was all weird, annoying, and slightly terrifying, but it was still fine. The thing was, she'd always had Wyatt and Chris at her side, beating up bad guys and protecting her while she protested that she could take care of herself, and they were always somewhat...untouchable. Chris was neurotic. Wyatt was annoyingly optimistic. Yet they were both her big brothers, and they were supposed to look after _her_...right? Weren't they supposed to be invincible?

She honestly didn't want to know what could've gotten to Chris and possibly even _through _Wyatt. That was one frightening thought.

"Well, Wyatt kinda showed up tonight with Chris –"

Piper narrowed her gaze as Paige said this and the teen winced, knowing her mother was probably questioning where she'd been.

"– only it turned out to be some shapeshifter, who unfortunately got away, but the thing is Wyatt swears he hadn't left Chris alone for more than a minute, and...we haven't been able to sense him or find him since. Er, yet."

"So.." She said slowly, mind reeling. "We lost Chris."

"Yeah."

It was then that Piper spoke up in her calming, slightly ticked-off, motherly tone and soothed the tense moment.

"But not for long. We're gonna find him and vanquish the _hell_ out of whoever took him."

Melinda smiled shakily. If nothing else, her mother never failed to be frighten-er, a force to be reckoned with.

"Is there anything I can do to help?"

Suddenly Phoebe's head shot up from her arms and she grinned, and Melinda could almost see a light bulb going on above her aunt's head. The empath jumped from her chair and began to dance towards her excitedly.

"I think maybe you can!" She exclaimed, grasping her niece's hands and swinging them around. The girl didn't particularly mind; her aunt tended to get this way a lot.

"Pheebs?" Piper questioned, raising an eyebrow at her sister's antics. Paige also gave her an inquisitive look.

"Well, I mean, Wyatt said that shapeshifter left something, right?"

"But you couldn't get a premonition, remember –" Paige interrupted, seeing where her older sister was going.

Though the woman appeared a little sour about that for a moment, it was quickly replaced by her enthusiasm, and she continued on her idea.

"Well yeah, _I _tried, but I mean, maybe together we could get something, you know? Power of two?"

Piper shrugged. Mel was confused. But Paige began to grin, maybe catching whatever excitement her sister was giving off.

"Yeah, yeah, double the power. It could work." She muttered.

"What?" Mel said.

"Oh, just go." Piper rolled her eyes, waving her hand at them. Clearly she didn't think it would work. And it probably wouldn't. "Call if you find something."

With a decisive nod, Phoebe smiled impatiently at Melinda, and after a long, slack-jawed gaze it finally registered to the teen that her aunt wanted her to orb them someplace.

"Where to?" She asked, still puzzled.

"P3, come on, come on."

With a I'll-just-go-with-this-and-hope-it-works-out shrug that was used often in the Halliwell family, Melinda closed her eyes and focused on her mother's club, and the two figures disappeared in a shower of white and blue lights.

* * *

It'd been a day no more unusual than the rest. Demons came, demons were vanquished, magical witch powers were used and carpets and furniture everywhere were ruined. The only difference was this time Chris had brought a friend from school over, and first-grade boys didn't take to fireballs and explosions as well as one might think.

They'd been forced to erase his memories – he'd been down-right _terrified_ of the Halliwells – and send him home, Piper giving him cookies to ease her massive pile of guilt. It was then that her little boy burst into tears and buried himself into the living room couch.

"Why do we have to have powers?" Was his muffled cry through the pillows. Piper had sat down, coaxed him into her lap, and rubbed his back in gentle, soothing circles, but after a minute she frowned; sometimes she wondered if she ought to have bound their powers after all. Sometimes she had doubts about her decision. Wasn't protecting the innocent too much for children?

Still, she remembered in full why she hadn't done it after all. She felt her lips curve up into a smile as she explained it to him.

"Because...it's our destiny. Peanut, these powers aren't just cool things to use for yourself, or even for others – they're who we _are_."

He poked his head out of her shoulder, looking to her in confusion.

"I-I thought we were humans, Mommy, just with awesome powers."

"Well, we are _witches_, sweetie. It doesn't make us any worse than demons, nor any better than humans; just more responsible. It's our job to look after mortals. These 'powers' are only part of the deal."

Piper pressed a kiss to his forehead – something he promptly rubbed off, but she only laughed. That was alright. There was more than enough love shining in his green orbs to satisfy her. Though there was more puzzlement in them than anything right then.

"But Matt didn't appreciate us protecting him today! He didn't even thank us – he just hid in the corner and called us monsters! ….w-we're not monsters, are we, Mommy?"  
Oh, her heart couldn't handle the way his lower lip trembled when he asked her that, the way his eyes shimmered with unshed tears. What she wouldn't give to shield him from all the world's pain.

"No, no! Of course not." She assured him, securing her arms around him tighter. He didn't mind that. "You are _not _a monster and you will _never_ be. Never, Peanut. Never ever. Mortals just...fear what they can't understand."

"And we still look out for them?" He questioned in exasperation. It was a fair question and Piper had often asked herself that very one, especially after meaning any sort of witch-haters. And yet through wisdom and years of experience, she'd finally gained an answer.

"Because of who we are." She replied softly.

"Because we're witches. Heroes." He added, smiling up at her. She grinned back at him.

"Yeah, honey. That's right."

The boy had cheered up after that.

That memory seemed so far away from Chris as he struggled violently against humans, punching, kicking, and biting the people he was meant to protect. He screamed as loudly as he could, fighting in vain until he found himself back in a familiar chair, being strapped down, _again_, and felt himself on the verge of tears. They had messed with his powers and his mind – it was slower than it had ever been – and now they were sticking some kind of IV into his arm. Why? Why couldn't they just leave him alone? What had he ever done but help, serve, protect, and occasionally rant to, humans? Had he not spend his entire youth learning to put them above himself? Learning how to better save them? He hadn't been given a choice on whether he wanted to be a witch or not; but he'd still chosen to fight the fight. Mortals couldn't do it, so he'd done it for them.

Now he shed tears as they tied him down and turned a small, yet significant little nob on the IV pole, flooding his system with yet more drugs. Added more fog to his mind.

_It's not fair! _He wanted to scream. _It's not fair at all!_

The teen could just picture the slight, pity-filled smile of Destiny herself as she put a hand on his shoulder and murmured,

_I'm sorry, Christopher, but life isn't about fairness. _

Oh yeah? Really? He was strapped to a chair, slowly becoming unconscious, and waiting to be tortured on his _birthday_. Life wasn't fair?

_What else is new_. He thought sarcastically.

* * *

November 16, 2021

11:09 PM

The teen let out a soft sigh again.

"Really? Mortals?" He murmured in a derogatory tone.

Though Leo was now (and had been for a while) a mortal, he did not take that much offense to his son's comment. Rather, he agreed with him.

While his wife's expectations had been very, very low, his and his optimistic son's had been a little too high – they'd come with hopes of demons, or secret lairs, or a hidden entrance to a cave in which they'd find their missing family member. Heck, they'd hoped for an empty meadow that was a tad _too _quiet. But this? This was...

The two men sighed in unison. In front of them lay a long, flat, mostly glass building that went around in an oval shape, with a small garden in the space between. It had tinted glass on all sides but the nice-looking, regular glass front doors, and had a large, helpful name across the top just in case wandering witches (and mortal) came looking for something supernatural; Bennett Scientific Research Facility.

They'd observed various cars and various people go in and out, always polished and smart-looking, always too busy to notice them. No one had seemed out-of-the-ordinary, despite it being an odd hour for work. No one had screamed 'demon'. The ones that did glance at them clearly didn't know who they were, they didn't even _care_ who they were – they had someplace better to be, apparently.

The men had even tried asking several (obvious) employees about the place, and had gotten nothing but quick, boring, very _normal _answers. The only odd thing about any of it was that they didn't seem to know how late it was.

With a sudden pang Wyatt had realized that, were his brother there with him, the boy would've understood the man's explanation about...science and what not. Without him, every word had soared high above Wyatt's zoned out head.

It truly seemed like these people were mortals; ordinary, through and through. Probably insomniacs, but still. Phoebe hadn't seen the scrying crystal land here after all.

"I guess we should see if they found Chris yet." Wyatt said glumly.

Leo nodded, placing one hand on his son's arm to orb. Neither were looking forwards to Piper's inevitably snappy, rude, stress-induced 'I told you so'. Normally the woman would be a little more gracious and considerate to her family's feelings, because that was the kind of mother and wife she'd become; yet under the circumstances, she tended to get a little...cranky. Not fun.

As the pair rematerialized into their old attic, they were surprised to find that there were only two sisters working hard to find Chris, instead of three.

"Uh...Where's Aunt Phoebe?" Wyatt asked, scratching his blond curls. Piper's head snapped up from her frantic search of the book and her gaze bore into them.

"No luck, huh?" She asked, ignoring his question. No smugness that he could detect, though; just a bit of disappointment.

Beside him, Leo sighed and nodded, running his hands through his hair like he did when he was frustrated. That was something Chris did, too, Wyatt discovered with dismay. Like father, like lost, kidnapped son.

"We will find him." Said his mother in her determined, steely voice. "We'll tear apart the entire underworld if we have to." And her words comforted him. Because they would.

"Maybe we should just go down there and do that." Paige muttered from behind her caldron. If the many types of ingredients scattered everywhere were anything to go by, she must've tried every potion known to witch...and yet none of them had worked?

"Yeah um...where did Aunt Phoebe go?" Wyatt asked again. The tearing-apart-the-underworld-thing didn't sound like such a bad idea, though. In fact, it sounded kinda fun and stress-relieving.

"Hmm? Oh, she and Mel are trying to get a premonition from the club." Piper said absently, flipping pages once more.

Wyatt was surprised. Apparently so was Leo.

"Mel went with her? To the club?" The ex-whitelighter questioned. "I thought she was over at a friend's house. Were you absolutely _certain_ that she wasn't the shapeshifter?"

Although an uneasy frown marred her features, Piper waved a hand at her husband, nose still buried in the sacred Book.

"No, it wasn't. She wasn't...Couldn't have been, right, Paige?"

"Yeah, she had a cut and I healed her. Definitely not a demon." The witch-lighter confirmed.

The man sighed in relief.

"Just...be careful, alright? We don't want anyone else going missing too."

Wyatt realized he hadn't really seen the creases of worry on his father's face before, or noticed how stressed he'd been since all this had started. With a small smile, he placed a hand on Leo's shoulder for comfort.

"We're gonna find him, Dad. And we're not gonna lose anyone else – I promise."

Leo attempted a little smile in return, grateful for the affirmation.

"I know. I _know_." And the second time he said it, he almost seemed to believe it.

* * *

November 17, 2021

6:17 AM

The man walked with confidence, and a purpose, striding towards a particularly busy looking reporter, who was switching frantically from his computer to his pen and paper, all the while talking on his phone. His desk was littered with papers of all sorts, his trashcan stuffed with them to the point of exploding, and everyone else in the building seemed to know to stay out of this reporter's way.

This was the one the man wanted. Glancing down again in amusement at the tape – the old-fashioned, almost never used anymore VHS tape – he slid it into one hand and let it drop to his side. He rubbed one of the many large rings on his fingers and was satisfied when the room slowed, almost completely stopped, as though frozen. Time still moved, it was simply moving at an incredibly slow rate.

Comically, the reporter's mouth was still slightly open from speaking to whomever was on his phone, his fingers paused above his keyboard. The man bend towards his ear and whispered,

"None of those stories are any good. They are all fakes and lies. You know your editor will hate them all. No, you need something new, something exciting...something unbelievable."

With extra care, the man placed the video tape next to the reporter's computer, the side that had the post-it on it up. It said, _From a friend. _

"You will think one of your informants gave you this." He told the reporter. "You know this will be the greatest story ever told, and _you _will be the one to get the..."  
He paused, trying to remember the phrase.

"...Inside scoop." The man thanked mortal television. "You will not throw this away, and you will not watch it until the time is right. In two hours, you will remember this and you will watch it. It has not been tampered with, you know that. It is the truth. As soon as possible, to whoever will listen, you will show this and become the most famous reporter in history."

With a small sigh, the man straightened. "That should do it." He muttered. Without hesitation, he rubbed one of rings on his left hand again and the room soon returned to speed. The man stepped back and waited.

"– yes, Sally, I need that information now, what did you think I meant, next Tuesday?!" The reported was yelling, typing angrily all the while. It was with a few dark chuckles that the man watched as the reporter trailed off, eyes wide at the sight of the tape.

"What is..." He mumbled. "'From a friend'? From...Donny, maybe?"

"What?! No, Sally, I'm not talking to you! No! I-I don't need that info anymore, either! I've got a _real _story now!"

_And you don't even know what it is. _The man thought, grinning. _Well, my work here is_ _done. _

So he strolled out of the office, not a single person having noticed his presence.

* * *

Coop, husband of Phoebe Halliwell and father of three beautiful, insane half-witch, half-cupid girls, ran his hands through his hair again. With a sigh he thanked the fellow cupid in front of him and left, disappearing in the usual pink flash.

The moment his wife had called him and explained that their nephew had been kidnapped, Coop had taken the girls to their grandfather's place and began asking each one of his magical contacts about any information they might have.

He loved Phoebe. He loved her entire crazy family. But sometimes he wondered how they ever got anything done with someone always being kidnapped, or stolen, or possessed, or turned into something else.

And it wasn't as though he hadn't had his own set of problems lately, too. Someone had been attacking cupids – they already killed five and were going around stealing even more of their rings. Naturally, as an expert on love and relationships, he'd informed his wife of this new predicament. And of course she'd gotten upset and worried and even demanded that he stay inside for a week or three, but the moment something had happened to her nephew, it was all, _Do everything in you can to find him, Coop. Don't stop until we know where he is, go to everyone, everywhere and _find_ him, damn it! Gotta go with my sisters now, bye! ...Oh, and take the kids to their grampa's, sweetie.  
_

Sometimes he truly hated how single-minded the Halliwell sisters could be. It wasn't as though he could begrudge her for loving Chris, though – he loved the kid, too, however sarcastic he might be.

No, what was really bothering him was the attacks on the cupids, and what exactly it meant. Being married to a Charmed One came with special perks, and getting respect and adoration from the magical world was one of them; yet it also meant that they sometimes expected him to fix their problems. Like the cupids did. They looked up to him, thought of him as a brother (though most cupids usually did, being all about love) and frankly...it put a ton of pressure on him to resolve this. What was he going to do if he couldn't? What if he was next? And how on earth was he supposed to find his nephew on top of it all?!

The dark-haired man blew out another sigh, rubbing his face anxiously. If only he could blame the crimes on a random demon of hate (the demon counterpart of cupids). The thing was, he hadn't sensed any hate from any of the scenes where the cupids had died, he hadn't felt any of that overwhelming loathing. So he couldn't. Because they weren't. And that meant he was left with a question that put dread in his stomach and fear in his heart – who _would _do it?

Unconsciously, he shook his head. That wasn't his main concern at the moment...according to his wife.

"Time to go home, I think." He whispered. Coop still remembered when his job used to be fun, used to bring such _joy_ and _delight _into his life. Now his ring felt like a giant bull's-eye on his back, saying "Come and get me!" to the demon responsible.

He closed his eyes and thought only of his precious, wonderful little girls and how much he loved them...

When he opened them again, he was in Victor Bennett's apartment.

"Victor?" He called loud, not wanting to frighten the mortal who rather disliked magical intruders. The man and he hadn't exactly started on great terms, but he rather thought they'd gathered a repoire over the years, even to the point of friendship.

The old man came out of his bedroom with a cup of coffee, dark circles under his eyes, and a small vial in his hands. Coop recognized it as one of the sisters' vanquishing potions and felt a proud smile creep up his tired face; Victor wasn't as helpless a mortal as some might think.

Phoebe's father's greeting was mixed with warmth, concern, and anxiousness, the last of which probably increased by the coffee, the cupid guessed.

"Coop," He smiled, gripping the taller man's hand tightly. "The girls are asleep in the spare bedroom. After the seventh game of Candyland, all of 'em just about crashed."

The man let out a cross between a sigh and a small chuckle.

"I bet...Thanks for watching them, Victor."

Remembering in full the reason he'd had to watch them, the grey-haired man's smile slid right off his face.

"I don't mind it, I really don't. They're good girls...But did you find Chris yet?"

Coop breathed out heavily. This was the tricky part, the even trickier part explaining it to his wife...

"No." He said carefully. Victor all but dropped his mug, sagging against his kitchen counter hopelessly and letting the vanquishing potion slip from his other hand. It took a long, long moment for the man to process this, realize that Coop was still shifting uncomfortably as though he was hiding something, and decide to accept the situation and move on. That was very big of him, the cupid noted.

The grey-haired man sucked in a deep breath and set his coffee mug down, now staring intently at his son-in-law. It was both intimidating and funny at the same time.

"Did you...did you find anything out, at least? About where he is?" He asked, struggling with the news of a still-missing grandson all the while. As much as Coop's heart went out to this man, this grandfather that didn't quite belong in the magical world, he knew he couldn't sugarcoat it. That wouldn't be fair.

"Well," He began, moving to sit on one of the kitchen chairs. "It's...strange."

Victor merely blinked.

"There has been some attacks on cupids lately. Someone – some_ demon _– is stealing our rings."

Coop paused, at first since he wasn't sure how to continue, and then to let the man across from him process the new information. It was easy to forget that Victor barely grasped magic as it was, and even though he was very intelligent, it still took a little more explaining for the man to understand things than it would for, say, Phoebe.

"A-a-and what does this have to do with Chris?" The man questioned, rubbing a hand across him face. It didn't – not exactly – because although Coop hadn't gotten any info on Chris from his connections _directly_, it was the conclusions he'd jumped to that worried him. Glancing at the cup of coffee with envy, he quickly got up and turned on the machine, pulling out a cup from one of the kitchen cabinets.

"Do you mind?"

Victor shook his head 'no' and the cupid sat down again, listening to the comforting sounds of the coffee maker warm up and pour his drink.

"See, Victor, the only reason anyone ever steals our rings," He held his large white ring up in demonstration. "Is to mess with time, or to plant thoughts in mortal's heads."

"Okay."

Phoebe's father still looked puzzled, though that was most likely due to the conversion being what he thought was a non sequitur. Coop sucked in another deep breath, wishing his life were easier.

"The thing is, Victor, is that well...demons only ever steal _one. _Because they only _need _one to mess with time or plant thoughts. But this demon, Victor? He's taken _twelve_...so far."

Bless his heart, the man was trying so hard to understand it all. Even through all the frustration and alarm at the situation, Coop felt a wave of affection rise for the man – well, he was a cupid, was he not?

He straightened his face back into a serious expression. Hearing the machine's sounds slow, meaning it was done pouring his coffee, Coop stood up and strode over to it, picking it up gingerly as to not get burned. He began to pull milk from the fridge, because he did not like his coffee black, and continued speaking,

"Most cupids don't know this, since, you know, it's sorta a secret," Shutting the fridge he hefted the milk onto the kitchen counter, and spoke to the man over his shoulder.

"But there's power in numbers, Victor, and with thirteen rings from cupids, well...you could do a lot of damage with that. You could not only plant thoughts into mortal's minds, you could _create_ or _destroy _them, even in witches and other magical beings. And time? Hah, you could change the past, you could change the future, you might could even travel to alternate futures or pasts – the point is, the demon could do...just about whatever they wanted, and it would be incredibly hard to stop them."

Finally, the man's patience broke. Not that Coop could blame him.

"I'm sorry, Coop, but what does all of this have to do with Chris?!" He demanded.

"I really hope nothing." He replied gravely. "But don't you think it's odd that the sisters haven't found him yet? I mean, with all of their magic, all of their connections, not even a _trace._...and I can't help but think that it's not a coincidence."

The man's eyes widened.

"So you think that...whoever has Chris...has the power to –"

"–Make him do just about whatever he wants. Yeah." Coop finished grimly.

Victor looked like he'd just been shot, then run over, and then shot again.

"Yeah, now think about having to tell that to _Piper._" He chuckled darkly.

All the grey-haired man said in response was,

"I think I need a drink."

And Coop couldn't help but agree.

* * *

It seems I can only update once a month. Sorry about that, guys. But hey, on the bright side – found a plot! Woohoo!

A cookie and a glass of milk goes to whoever can guess why our villan gave a reporter a tape. Yes, it's a tape because Charmed is a little old, and frankly, I couldn't imagine it being a DVD. I just couldn't.

And how did you like Coop? Yay? Nay? Out of character?

Please keep reading and keep reviewing! Love you guys! :D

Next update – most likely a month.


	9. Making Progress - One Mistake At A Time

Oh, my goodness! LOOK AT HOW LONG THIS IS! I didn't mean for it to be this long, but the story was getting slow, and a lot had to happen and...and...I thought about splitting this into two. Cause it's _long_. Most of the time I struggle with getting it past 4k or 5k and this...is OVER EIGHT THOUSAND! If it'd been nine, that joke would've been awesome.

**Reviews**:

**Crystalzap**: I dunno. I mean, getting hit really hard in the head, kidnapped, drugged, and experimented on would be enough to send me into a full-blown panic attack. It's probably more than enough to mess with Chris's emotions, however in control of them he likes to seem. Hope you keep reading anyway!

**Guest**: Aw, you should get an account and PM me or something. I would love to know your theory. Oh, and here! I trust, following Charmed's logic, that you came to the right answer (or close enough). *Hands over aforementioned milk and cookies with a small, wistful sigh* Hope you keep reading :)

**NicaDaRebe**l: Aww, thanks! I appreciate you looking into this fic even though you 'aren't into' this kind. That means a lot ^^ (No, that's not sarcasm :D)

**Disclaimer** - I don't own _nothing_...not even grammar.

* * *

November 16, 2021

10:20ish PM

If Phoebe were to be completely, brutally honest with herself, she'd kindly say that for an advice columnist who wrote on love every work-day of her life, her own love-life wasn't faring so well. And well, maybe she wouldn't even phrase it that nicely.

It wasn't that she didn't love Coop – the man had swept her off her feet (almost literally) with a romance she'd only dreamed of, and gave her passionate kisses and roses and told her stories of his time as a cupid. They used to talk for _hours _about their lives, about love, about magic...about everything, really. Phoebe had never met such a great listener, and she'd never felt so compelled to listen. Coop was exciting, adventurous, and definitely, despite her earlier protests, _very _cute. Somehow, without her meaning to, she'd handed him her broken, hardened heart and he'd turned it back into its glorious former self. Truly, with all of her soul, Phoebe loved Coop.

It was just...they hadn't been talking lately. They hadn't exactly been _not _talking, either – it merely seemed as though they were both too busy to sit down and chat. Phoebe hadn't thought of it much, hadn't considered it might be a big deal, or anything. It hadn't appeared to be that important at the time.

And then Coop had told her that there was some new demon going around, killing cupids and stealing their rings, which, of course, had really freaked her out. What if it got him? Still, they hadn't pulled one another aside, hadn't stolen any deep kisses that might be their last, heck, they hadn't even said 'I love you' for weeks! How had Phoebe become so ignorant, so focused on her own problems? How had their relationship gotten like this? She wished she knew.

Yet that wasn't the worst part of it all. The worst part was that she'd sent him _back _into the magical world, where he was more likely to be targeted by the cupid-killer, and practically _ordered _him to find Chris at any cost. It wasn't her fault, she'd tried to reason. She was stressed.

But she'd felt progressively guiltier and guiltier as time went on. It wasn't weariness from scrying that made her head sink into the table; it was a horrible, acid feeling eating away at her stomach. Was she being a terrible wife? Was she being insensitive, uncaring?

The empath tried to think back to the last time they'd really, _really _spoken, face to face, about just the two of them. Wait, it was...it'd been a month ago. She'd noted the dark circles under his eyes and had questioned him about it. He'd told her about the demon killing his fellow cupids and...oh. That's right. Fear had filled her heart and had blinded her eyes. Had she...had she been avoiding him? Was that it? If she had, she certainly hadn't done it on purpose!

_You just didn't want to lose another one. _A voice in her mind whispered. _You were trying to distance yourself, so it wouldn't hurt so much. _

It rang so true in her heart that the words physically hurt.

_But I love Coop, and I'm not going to let anything happen to him! _Phoebe insisted.

_Yet you could still lose him. You can't save them all, Phoebe, you know that. And besides, wasn't this going to end eventually? Don't they all?_

_No. _Phoebe thought firmly. _Till death do us part. We vowed that – we did. And I'm a Halliwell, and we don't let people go that easily. _

Both the realization of what she'd subconsciously been doing and her affirmation to fix it helped to ease the hurricane of guilt inside, if only a tad bit. She was going to have a talk with her husband, a good, long, proper one. And she was going to tell him everything – because she could. It was one of her favorite things about their relationship.

_But first...we have to find Chris. _The overprotective aunt part of her brain said. _His life comes before your marriage. _

Phoebe swallowed, knowing it was right and hating it for that.

"Is there anything I can do to help?" A familiar voice asked behind her. _When did she come in?_ Phoebe wondered cluelessly.

And then she had an idea. A really, really awesome idea. Alright, so the awesomeness of her plan was certainly debatable, but it _was _something. Possibly.

Her head sprung up from the table, and her eyes searched wildly for the owner of the familiar voice she'd heard in the background of her epiphany. Hadn't she even replied to a question the voice had asked? Phoebe wasn't sure.

"I think maybe you _can_ help!" She exclaimed breathlessly. Giddiness overwhelmed her, since maybe, just maybe, Chris's disappearance was something she could fix...even if her marriage wasn't. This was something she could do. With a little help, of course. The witch practically danced her way to her niece and grabbed the girl's hands, so excited she began to swing them back and forth. Mostly, she was just glad she wouldn't have to sit at that table alone with her regrets anymore.

"Pheebs?" Her older sister's questioning tone broke into her racing thoughts. Her other, younger sister's eyes were also on her.

Phoebe blinked, realizing that she hadn't explained anything yet. The woman could've sworn that she yelled her plan out loud and had imagined it'd been much like Archimedes yelling 'Eureka!', though this scheme, perhaps, was not quite good enough for a eureka.

Impatiently, as though she were a child, she told them, "Well, Wyatt said the shapeshifter left something behind, right?"

Still, her family members were shooting her looks of confusion. Hadn't she explained enough? Why were they still puzzled?!

Suddenly understanding dawned on Paige's face, followed closely by a frown.

"But you said you couldn't get a premonition, remember –" The witch-lighter started to say. Phoebe couldn't wait for her to finish. A cross expression darkened her face but for a moment – then she let her enthusiasm wipe it out.

"Well, yeah, _I _tried," She said, rolling her eyes. "But I mean, maybe together we could get something, you know? Power of two?"

The empath jerked her head pointedly at Melinda, as though saying it flat-out would be just plain silly. Though the eldest Halliwell sibling still didn't seem to understand, or at least didn't like it since she had a sour look on her face, Paige began to nod and smile.

"Yeah, yeah. Double the power...it could work." Her sister muttered.

Her niece looked kind of dazed.

"Um...what?" She blinked, as though Phoebe had been speaking at light speed _on _light speed.

Luckily, as Phoebe didn't want to try to wrap her jumpy mind around a proper, magical, real explanation on what her idea was and why it ought to (with magic logic) work, Wyatt's mother spoke up.

"Oh, just go." She all but snapped, although Phoebe heard a hopeful note in her voice. When she flapped at hand at the still partly entwined aunt and niece, Phoebe was proud to say she only flinched a bit.

"If you find anything, call."

Coop's wife nodded; was there ever any doubt that she would? Then she turned to smile expectantly at Melinda. Unfortunately, the girl still looked confused about what they were doing. Really? Did it really need to be said? Somehow Phoebe thought it would ruin the fun – the mystery of it all!

Finally the girl's eyes widened, and she asked,

"Um, where to, exactly?" The poor teen looked awful – blood on her shirt, glass in her hair, and not to mention the bewilderment written all over her face – and yet hadn't uttered a single complaint about the situation. Of course, come time for cleaning the kitchen and it was an utterly different story...

"P3, come on." Phoebe told her, and it came out a little hastier than she intended. But her niece merely shrugged, and Phoebe felt the warm, familiar sensation of disappearing overcome her body.

* * *

For the first four years of his life, Christopher Halliwell was watched very carefully. That wasn't to say he wasn't kissed and hugged and played with and loved just as much as his older brother. Their parents had, in fact, gone out of their way to make sure each child was loved much, and loved equally.

But for the first few years of Chris's life he was watched a little closer that Wyatt. It was, undoubtedly, noticeable – in the way Piper held a little too tightly onto his hand, the way Leo stared into his eyes a tad too long, too searching – yet only towards those above ten or so. The blond child never gave any indication of unhappiness, or suspicion that his brother was liked more than him, for which Piper and Leo were grateful. Because they _didn't_ favorite one child or the other; that wasn't how parents were, or at least, not how they ought to be. It wasn't extra love, though. Really.

It was fear.

One would think that as parents, theorizing that their son might remember a non-existent future was perhaps complete paranoia, but Piper and Leo were supernatural (or ex-supernatural) beings, and knew that magic was a very complicated and usually troublesome thing. They understood that no matter what happened, this child would face more problems and be more overprotected that the first, simply because they had known him twice.

Perhaps Piper didn't fully comprehend why Chris remembered, why he'd been given the same soul, and maybe she never would. That hadn't mattered so much.

What mattered was that on a warm summer night of July, when her second son was three years and a few months, her worst fears were all confirmed; Chris remembered.

It was clear that the memories were fuzzy at best, and that the entirety of the twenty-three years of knowledge did not quite fit into his toddler brain, and while he didn't share his counterpart's aversion to Leo, or dislike or Wyatt, Chris was saying things that he couldn't possibly know. Piper was certain that the little boy didn't even know what he was talking about. But he talked about Wyatt turning evil...about Leo leaving...about things that just broke his mother's heart.

Obviously, Chris would someday begin to realize what he was saying, start to wonder what it meant and why he'd thought those things. Eventually, surely, the memories would catch up. He wouldn't understand – he would be tormented by a world that he had helped prevent. And it wasn't fair. It wasn't fair to the man who'd sacrificed everything, or to the innocent child, or to Piper, who had to watch it all.

So it was after much heated discussion, a spell to make certain, and a solemn agreement among the three sisters (and Leo, the father) that they would bind, not erase, his memories. It was unspoken, but all of them heard the words hover in the air; _until he's old enough. _It had seemed like he would never be old enough, and he would never remember that horrible, dark, twisted world. As a mother, Piper didn't want her child to have to suffer through that, not even if it meant seeing Chris Perry again. It'd been hard enough the first time...seeing him so messed up, so hurt and lonely and alone and...  
Leo's wife didn't want to see him suffer anymore.

"_Memories and emotions tied,_

_Chris's heart is where it hides,_

_Help him through this agony,_

_Help us bind his memory,_

_So that when this spell is said and done,_

_Chris Perry will be hidden,_

_And his pain and loss will not be known,_

_Until Piper's second son is grown._"

* * *

_Wyatt was shaking him, yelling at him to get up for school._

"_But Wy, it's Saturday." He tried to argue. "And you don't really even live here anymore! You live in a dorm, at college!"_

_Piercing blue eyes blinked, and suddenly they were tinged with green and it wasn't Wyatt – it was him. His features were twisted into a disturbing scowl. Every time he spoke, something beneath his skin shifted sickeningly, as though there was something crawling around inside. It left him with a deep desire to vomit. _

"_You don't want to be late, Chris. Wouldn't want your family to worry about you." The Wyatt-Chris sneered. The fake-Chris pushed him through an open door that hadn't been there before, and he fell into the familiar space of P3. It was done up in the usual lame balloons and streamers and 'Happy Birthday!' signs that, under normal circumstances, made him want to curl up in a corner and cry of embarrassment. But there was no one here. No cake, no presents, no cousins or brothers or parents. The room was eerily dark and silent, leaving a cold dread in his stomach. _

"_You didn't want to come, Chris." A new voice said, it's sad, quiet tone haunting. Was it...it was Piper! The woman stepped out of the shadows with tears streaming down her cheeks. He wanted to run over and wrap his arms around her because good and strong mothers should never, ever be allowed to cry. It was breaking his heart. _

"_Why didn't you come, peanut?" She asked, reddened eyes pleading. "We love you! We need you! Please, baby, please don't leave us." _

"_Mom, I'm right here, I'm not going anywhere –" Yet it was as though his assurances weren't reaching her ears; she wasn't listening to him at all._

"_Now look what you've done, Chris!" A second voice joined the first, striding angrily towards his wife so that he, instead of his son, could draw the woman close._

"_You've made your mother cry!"_

This is all wrong._ He thought in confusion. Piper didn't cry – not often, at least – and went she did it was always because something really, really bad had happened. Nothing had happened. Nothing was wrong.  
And Leo! – the man never scolded his children like that, not ever! He wasn't overprotective of his wife either; because she knew how to handle herself. _

"_No, Mom, everything's okay." He said, reaching out an arm. Abruptly, like he'd triggered a trap, thick metal bars slammed down in front of him and his parents, and he found himself stuck in a square cage, unable to break loose no matter how hard he tried. _

"_Why did he have to go? Why did he want to leave us?!" Piper was sobbing; Leo shushed her gently, tears of his own trickling down._

"_It was his time, I guess. It was meant to be. Goodbye, buddy – we'll miss you." And together they walked back into the darkness, completely oblivious to his screams._

"_No, Mom! Dad! Please! I-I'm right here, I-I'm RIGHT HERE! J-j-just turn around and LOOK AT ME! MOM! PLEASE! DAD!"_

_Soft water droplets landed on his arm – he glanced down to be sure. He was crying too. There was no more empty, picture-perfect P3, no, there was only darkness and the cage, it's confining bars ever squeezing closer in on him. Already he couldn't sit down. Soon he wouldn't be able to turn around – and then he wouldn't be able to even breathe. _

"_Chris, you're such a cry-baby." Wyatt's gentle, teasing tone echoed around the not-space. _

_He nearly collapsed in relief. Someone had come to save him. He wouldn't have to be alone anymore. -_

"_Wy! Wy, please, you have to get me out of here, I-I can't...Mom and Dad weren't listening a-a-and...a-and –"_

"_Why don't you just –" Wyatt's soft, calming, familiar voice changed into a deeper, sinister man's voice. A voice that he connected irretrievably with pain and hatred and loneliness. "– use your magic, Christopher? Or, should I call you by what you really are – a _witch._" The way the man said it made it sound like a disease or something, as though witches were things that had always deserved to be burned. Burned...burning..._

_Suddenly the cage was on fire, licking his skin and igniting his clothes with delighted pain and heat. Who had set the cage on fire?! Had it always been and he hadn't noticed before?_

_Everything felt like a really, really bad sunburn and Wyatt had just used the last of the aloe vera gel, and he couldn't even fall into unconsciousness because it burned. So. Bad._

"_Please! Please, stop! I just wanna go home." He cried, shaking._

"_But you're not even human, witch. You don't have a home." _

_A woman appeared next. No, she shimmered, wearing a blood-red dress and a scowl. He gasped as he found himself three inches from her. Wait...didn't he...know her?_

"_Hey, I know you! You're – Y-you are...are..." Yet no name would come to him. There was a familiarity in her arched brows, in her wide, alluring lips, in the dead brown eyes that used to sparkle with such wit and life..._

_And there was a strangely normal thrill when the woman had to lean up on her tiptoes to kiss him, and he never for a second considered doing anything but leaning down to meet her in the middle. He still did not have her name._

_Yet in that moment he wanted nothing else but to hold her forever. The cage, the fire in his veins, even the strange, wicked voice promising his demise – all he desired in the entire world was to close the small gap between them. Her lips...he'd never tasted anything so soft, so sweet, yet so addicting. He would never get enough. It was enough to drive him crazy, and just enough to bring back some sanity._

_The woman pulled away suddenly. Soon the fire was eating him again, consuming his skin and bones and soul. Without a word, the woman stepped back, lifting her hands to caress the pipe sticking out of her stomach. When had... Oh. The red of the dress had kept him from seeing that she was completely soaked in her blood; there was a pool of it at her feet. _

"_No...please, don't go, don't die." He begged her. "I don't want you to go yet – please! I'll do anything!_

_With a cruel smile, as though knowing he could not answer, she lifted her chin high and she asked, no, she _demanded_,_

"_What is my name, Chris? Tell me my name and I will stay."_

"_I don't, I can't think of –" Any clues or letters of the name vanished under the sudden pressure. Now he was scrambling at straws, watching in agony as the blood was beginning to make a small, sick stream connecting his feet to hers. By now the cage was in the back of his mind, crushing him but not important. The fire must've been going, too, and yet all of his pain derived from the now stumbling woman. _

_He watched helplessly as her legs collapsed. Why couldn't he help her? Why couldn't he help anyone?_

"_What...is my...name..C-Chris.." She gasped. The woman was almost entirely red – the same red as her dress and the floor. The same color of pain and death. _

"_I don't know. I'm so sorry, but I can't, I don't...I don't know." He whispered numbly. Why couldn't he figure it out? Why wasn't he smarter, or faster, or more powerful? Why couldn't he do _anything_?!_

"_W-wha...my...name...Chri –" She slumped mid-word, falling in slow motion towards the ground and landed, unmoving, with her eyes and mouth wide open. There was nothing left in her. He knew that. There was nothing left. Nothing at all. _

"_Nothing...left...nothing...left..."_

* * *

His fingers traced the new scars slowly, carefully, in disapproval. Two long cuts trailed both forearms, a small but deadly cut sliced along the chest, and three more decorated the stomach and abdomen. That was without mentioning the worrisome state of the head, either, and he wasn't speaking of mental health. The man frowned, knowing he was not going to carry out his plan with the boy like such a bloody mess (pardon his language – and pun). It was one of his (very) few flaws – the absolute need for perfection. His own minions had criticized him on taking care of his enemies, especially when he was only going to kill them later. It was useless to explain, of course, that one could be a demon and still possess manners of some sort. They were stupid, as minions so loved to be. No matter; he'd gotten new ones very quickly.

Now, however...he decided that a regenerative healing potion was easy enough to get and administer, and that waiting any longer would be unnecessary and foolish. While Bennett was an idiot, he had money and irritating little pests called 'security guards', and the man was not in the mood for such a silly thing like that.

The man in green robes smiled, reaching down with one hand to stroke the teen's cold, clammy cheek in a disturbing fashion, and fastened the other upon his bloodied shoulder.

"I'm so very glad Bennett is a marvelously giant idiot." He whispered to the witch. "It makes me really appreciate the time it took my demons to find him."

The boy did not answer. He was cold, he was filthy, and... frankly, he was sort of drooling a bit.

"Come along then, young Christopher." He said, ignoring it altogether. The man would not take offense, partly because the boy was a teenager and he hadn't expected much in the way of politeness from them, but also because of all that the man planned to do to Chris later. He wasn't heartless, exactly; just a demon.

"We have a big day ahead of us."

That, of course, was _meant_ to be a clichéd villainous line.

* * *

November 18. 2021

2:56 PM

Nicole further entangled her hands into her copper hair, a nervous habit. The white door in front of her had an open sign hanging on it, and had glass panes so that the interior was visible – a young woman sat at the counter inside, reading a book. That was Mara. This was her shop; The Wiccan Moon. She was the daughter of the real owner, and had taken over when her father had gone in to retirement.

Now the half-demon was running through of all these facts to distract herself from the only one that mattered...

She had yet to open the door. Despite what she'd said to her alter ego, she and Mara were not quite 'friends', because friends didn't eye you suspiciously and grab daggers every time you walk by. Well, not the close ones, anyway.

It was mainly because of what Nicole knew deep down, in her blood; they were enemies. It was instinctual, like how predators knew their prey and the prey knew their predator, so Mara really only had a bad feeling to go on. Nicole was not going to help her with that.

Also, Bianca's little temper tantrum brought all of that initial nervousness and uncertainly to the surface again, reminding her yet another time that she wasn't in a safe haven.

_Okay, either you open the door on the count of six, or we shimmer to the underworld and start tearing crap up._

Nicole rolled her hazel eyes. Bianca's tone was one of forced patience and false calmness and, frankly, it was really condensing coming from herself.

"If you talk to me like that again, I'm going to punch myself in the face." She threatened in a murmur.

"Excuse me?"

In a display of reflexes she didn't know she had (really, her face could testify from all the times it'd been hit with balls in gym), Nicole spun around and to the side, shifting into a fighter's stance and, simultaneously dropping the bag of various items she'd thought they might need (_Cough, pack-rat, cough_).

It was a regular woman. Middle-aged, brown-haired, and a little freaked out by the girl who had talked to herself and then very nearly attacked her.

If Nicole wasn't already certain that her olive skin hardly ever showed her embarrassment, she would've thought her cheeks were scarlet.

"O-oh! I'm so sorry, ma'am! I didn't mean to do that! You just surprised me." She tried to laugh to show the stranger that she wasn't dangerous, not really, and she didn't need to be locked away.

_Did you just say ma'am? _Bianca all but sneered. The younger girl almost preferred the hidden condescension. _And here I was hoping that you weren't completely uncool. _

It took effort, but the teen managed not to growl in reply.

"U-um...I-I just want to get in the store." The stranger in front of her stammered, pointing very obviously at the door Nicole was sort of blocking. Whoops.

Swooping down to retrieve her bag – a brown, flowered messenger bag to Bianca's dismay – she stepped out-of-the-way and shot the woman one last apologetic smile.  
"Sorry." She called as the door opened and the little bell tinkled. The woman practically slammed the door behind her, making Nicole wince.

"Oops." She said sheepishly.

_You win some, you lose some. _Bianca said indifferently, and Nicole had the impression of the woman sitting with her legs propped up on some sort of desk, inspecting her nails coolly. She gave a small laugh.

"I guess. So...I should probably go in now. Before I unnerve anymore customers."

_Good plan. _Replied the assassin-witch, though her voice suggested she thought it anything but.

"You know, I'm getting real tired of your sarcasm." The girl muttered as she grasped the handle and pulled.

_You mean _your _sarcasm? _

Nicole had to shut her mouth as she walked in so people wouldn't think her crazy, wincing again as the door slammed behind her. She decided it must've been the wind then, not anger on the stranger's part.

Mara, the blond-haired woman looking much a hippie-wicca-gypsy-lady with her peasant top, surplus of necklaces and rings, and bandanna with a peace sign on it, glanced up in surprise.

"Bianca! Hi! I haven't seen you in a while." Though her voice was soft and sing-songy sweet, Nicole couldn't help but feel her hands shaking.

"Yeah," She tried, licking her suddenly dry lips. "I haven't been doing as many potions lately, so..."

Though something in her was begging the teen not to, she moved closer to the counter and smiled up at her almost-sort-of-friend.

Mara nodded.

"I suppose they're keeping you too busy in high school for spells and potions, huh?"

"Yeah." Nicole's smile tightened. In the back of her mind she could feel now, more than ever, the demon assassin-witch, murderer and morally ambiguous alter ego, shift uncomfortably. Perhaps she hadn't brought an end to anything other had demons and the unfortunate mouse or two, but Bianca...Bianca had. That made the whole, chatting to fairly powerful witches thing a lot more terrifying.

"Say, Mara, I kind of have a problem I was hoping you might help me with."  
The lines around the older woman's eyes crinkled as she grinned, stowing her book under the counter and putting her hands together in anticipation.

"What can I help you with, Bianca? You always bring me good, troublesome problems."

So maybe most of the hostility was in Nicole's mind – she could never really be sure. She wasn't sure that she liked being known as someone who always brought 'troublesome' problems, either.

_Woah, wait a minute, wait a minute. Problems? What sort of problems? Don't tell me that this has happened to you before._

Nicole resisted the urge to snort.

_Yeah, I've somehow gotten a past alter ego person stuck in my head at _least_ five times. That's why I freaked out and had no idea what to do._

_No, wait, really, what problems? _ Bianca tried to ask over the sarcasm, clearly curious. Ha! Perhaps 'schoolgirl Nicole' was more interesting that she'd first thought!

Still, in an attempt not to seem rude/off/crazy, Nicole ignored the voice in her head and swallowed nervously, tugging on a strand of hair.

"Okay, so um... I cast this spell, see." She began. The blond woman nodded and inched forwards in excitement – it urged Nicole to continue.

The teen suddenly wondered where her life had gone; from planning on going to Harvard and becoming the greatest lawyer ever to talking to hippie ladies about past lives. All in all, she supposed it could've been worse...though surely not by much.

"You know how my spells usually have, like, a one-in-twenty-chance of working?"

Mara laughed; Nicole took that as agreement. Though that didn't mean the noise didn't damage her pride.

"So...it would only make sense for me to use my family's magic book instead, yeah? Well...I may have er, used a spell for personal gain. And it backfired – majorly."

_As I've said before, this is someone else's doing._ Bianca spoke up in an annoyed tone._ Not even you could mess up this badly._

_Shh! _The girl sent back, allowing herself a moment to marvel in the fact that she was _talking to someone telepathically. _Then to further bury herself in awe as she realized she was also _arguing _with someone _telepathically. _Yeah, this was her life.

"What spell did you cast, honey?" Mara's voice interrupted her thoughts. There was understanding and amusement twinkling in the woman's amber eyes, but the paranoia in Nicole couldn't help but think that there was suspicion there, too.

"I-it was supposed to be a memory spell." She stammered out. "Because, you know, I've tried the spell to find lost objects before and I was nearly buried in lost pens!"

"What memory spell?" The shop-owner questioned, a hint of irritation creeping in.

"U-um...to find a paper I lost?" She tried, realizing just how stupid she'd been as she was explaining it. Her whole life had changed in one instant, all because of a moment of selfishness and idiocy – and it hurt a lot more than she wanted to admit.

_Well, if you weren't an idiot I wouldn't be here._ Bianca's mind-voice was gruff (It was hard to tell how that worked). If Nicole weren't sharing a head with the woman she wouldn't have heard the appreciation in it – but she was and she did, so she smiled a little.

"And how did it backfire?" Mara's voice, soft and irritated, broke in. "What's your problem?"

With another swallow and yank on her hair, Nicole bit her lip. This was the harder part to explain.

"Well, I did _not_ remember where I put my paper," Somehow she was still bitter about that, even with all that was going on. Was that petty? Nah. After all, it _had _been a really important paper. "I remembered something a bit bigger...a-a...a past...life?"

The older woman's façade of understanding vanished. It was replaced by judgment and a lot of anger – and Nicole suddenly felt that this was a horrible idea and Bianca had been right and this hippie lazy was going to vanquish her butt off ––

And then Mara laughed. She laughed, snorted, chuckled, chortled, and did what Nicole was fairly certain was what they call a 'guffaw', and when she was finished she wiped the tears from her eyes.

"How is that funny?" Nicole squeaked indignantly.

"Because, darling, that's just not possible. Don't take this the wrong way or anything, but you don't have _near _enough power to do something like that without trying. You can't just focus on something small, like a paper, and end up with a whole past life!"

_Told ya!_ Bianca exclaimed smugly. It stung to have her power department confirmed as weak from two other sources, and it was a lot more infuriating to have one of those be _yourself_, but the calm, intelligent, mature part of her brain (No, definitely not Bianca) reminded her that they had bigger problems. Because if her spell hadn't done this...

"Then, um...w-what was it? How did this happen?"

The woman frowned absently and stretched out her hand to every so slightly touch Nicole's temple, obviously concentrating on something. It was a good thing, too, or else she would certainly have noticed the girl's heartbeat going crazy. Surely she couldn't tell that Nicole was a demon? No, definitely not. Right? Right?!

Finally, satisfied, Mara removed her hand and the highschooler let out an unconscious sigh. Yet the blond woman looked more troubled than ever, turning around and rifling through a box beneath the counter.

"M-Mara?" Nicole asked, puzzled. What did that mean, exactly?

"Hmph. I was right – this wasn't you." Was her muffled reply from beneath the counter. "It was something else...not quite sure. I'd bet an Angel of Destiny, she leaves that kind of imprint on people. Taking advantage of a loophole too, if it had anything to do with that spell you cast."

Nicole's jaw dropped and she heard a faint gasp echo in her mind. Suddenly everything was shifting, moving, even though the girl was standing completely still, and her whole world turned slightly. Destiny had done this? An _angel _of destiny? Through her small circle of magical friends/informants, she'd heard of angels of destiny, if only their name. But having one interfere in her life? Use her _own_ spell to do this? It was insane. From Bianca's earlier words of hating destiny, they'd obviously met. That in itself was amazing and terrifying. This...this was something Nicole was going to need time to process and more than a few cookies.

Then the woman reappeared, holding a small, dusty...magic 8 ball? And yet she held it aloft, a gigantic grin on her face, handing it over to Nicole like it was something precious. Frankly, Nicole was too shocked to do anything other than stare blankly from the ball to her strange acquaintance.

"It's a magic 8 ball." She stated. It was warm in her hands.

Mara nodded enthusiastically.

"You didn't think they were all fake, did you? Nah, witches have had these for centuries – crystal balls! When these things came out they altered some, just a tiny a bit, mainly for a laugh. They're actually very useful, turns out. Only downside is that it can only answer in traditional 8-ball answers."

The copper-haired girl glanced down in disbelief at the item in her hands. Maybe it was simply the insanity that was becoming today, or the constant fear that Mara was going to pull out a vanquishing potion and chuck it at her, but somehow her usually calm composure was dissolving before her eyes. She all but slammed the ball back onto the counter.

"I-I don't...I c-can't... What does that even mean?! How do you know all that?! And how do I fix this?!"

If she didn't get straight answers soon, she was either going to burst into tears or start screaming in anger. Somehow, she sensed Bianca would do the same, even though – despite her breakdown this morning – she didn't seem like the emotional type.

"It ain't broke." Mara told her, a note of seriousness creeping back into her tone.

"Yes, it is!" Nicole yelled. Perhaps it had all 'become clear' to Mara but it was only getting more and more confusing for the teen. She just wanted her head back – what was so hard about that?!

"Mara, I didn't just _remember_ a past life, she's an actual person! A real, annoying, frustrating, emotionally-closed off, actual person! And she's in my head! Just..._hanging out!_ And I just...I want her _out_."

Hot, emotional tears burned her eyes and stung her cheeks, and both Biancas cursed their moment of weakness. Blowing out a breath, she sucked in another, a shaky one, telling herself to calm down. Tears wouldn't solve anything.

"That's what this is for." There was a softness in her voice, but there was no kindness showing in Mara's amber eyes. Nicole wasn't sure whether she was imagining it or not, and yet for a second she could've sworn that there was hatred there, too.

Picking up the magic 8 ball, Mara smiled – again, a soft, polite, not really sweet smile – and asked it a question.

"Did what Bianca claims really happen?" She asked, shaking it. In a hushed tone, like it was going to overhear them, she whispered to Nicole, "Gotta make sure it's working first."

The witch didn't know exactly what she'd been expecting, but it wasn't for a regular, normal old '_YES_' to flow up and appear through the inky blackness. Slowly, like she was stupid, Nicole stared at the ball in her friend's hands to those amused amber eyes, and then back to the ball. This went on for about a minute of pure disbelief, until finally Nicole opened her mouth just to shut it again.

"I-I don't...what?" She hadn't thought Mara had been crazy. Murderous (to her half-demon butt only), yes, suspicious, untrusting, perhaps, but not right in the head? It had never occurred to the student.

"Oookay." She said slowly, backing away from the counter. "I think...I should go."

Impatient, the woman jerked her back to the counter and, hand still on her arm, guided the magic 8 ball into her palms.

"Ob, just try it! I'm not a crazy witch lady! Ask anything, you'll see." She then sat back, content, and watched with the smuggest smile she'd ever seen (Bianca's didn't count – she couldn't really see the person in her head), infuriating the girl into actually trying.

Glancing once more up at the shop-owner, Nicole finally just sighed and gave in, wondering why she'd come at all.

"Um, okay..." She looked to her alter ego (more like her eyes flickered to her forehead) and back down. "Do I really have a past life in my head? Am I not actually crazy?"

And she shook the thing up.

Through the black liquid, small, yellow letters surfaced to spell out a word that made her smile and sent her heart pumping; _NO_. It could be a coincidence. Twice in a row? Yeah, it could happen. Completely possible.

Knowing her life though, Nicole went with the much more likely answer – the magic 8 ball was really freaking magical. Weirdest. Day. Ever.

"Wow. That's...really, really cool." Nicole's head whipped up. "Can I buy one of these?"

With a chuckle, the woman shook her head and adjusted her bandana, having messed it up when retrieving the box.

"No, sorry, honey. They discontinued these, so they're pretty expensive. That one there is an antique."

Nicole's shoulders slumped, a frown stealing over her features as though she were a little kid again and her mother just said no to a toy. That only made Mara's laughter grow. No matter that she hadn't actually known her mother.

"Sorry, Bianca," The girl seriously doubted her sympathy was genuine. "But you're welcome to use it as much as you want to figure out your situation.'

"Thanks." She replied vaguely. Something nagged at her though, something about the phrasing. "Wait. 'Figure out'? Don't you mean 'fix'?"

Again, Mara shook her head, something that Nicole was angered that she could not understand, since a part of the witch said that she knew, somehow, that all of this mess had a greater purpose behind it. Nicole hated people who thought they knew the future. Unfortunately, Mara could actually, very well _know _the future, in which case it would be wisest to listen, though the schoolgirl couldn't comprehend it yet.

"Well, if that's all cleared up." She replied sarcastically.

_Ask it if an angel of destiny really did this. _Bianca abruptly spoke up, having said nothing for a while. It surprised the other one, sending her to clutch at the counter to hold herself up, all the while Mara giggling in the corner. Oh, real mature.

But Nicole did as she was told, and after a small shake, there was different answer, still in the same yellow, easy print; _Ask again later_.

At this the girl raised her eyebrow and inside her head she felt Bianca follow suit, staring in disbelief at an inanimate object.

"Ask again later?" She repeated. "Are you...are you..." She almost burst out laughing.

"Are you avoiding the question?"

Its reply brought many, many chuckles – _MAYBE. _

"Ha! That's hilarious! Are you afraid of the angel of destiny?"

_COUNT ON IT_.

"Well, that's just...great!" She giggled. To check to see if Mara had watched this conversation, the girl looked up, and found equally entertained amber orbs, dancing at the object in her hands.

"Go on, then, Bianca." She urged, her smile fading. It was as though all of her good humor was draining from her body; soon there was only a serious, determined face left. It bewildered the girl. Yet she still followed the order, nervously now, again. This was the look that always scared her, that convinced her that Mara was going to vanquish her someday. There was no way to prove that it _wasn't _her plan.

_Ask it if this can be reversed. _The alter ego requested, and like a good little girl, getting a little irritated at all these demands, Nicole complied.

This time the answer caused a big, unhappy frown.

_TOO EARLY TO TELL. _

"What do ya mean?" She said loudly. "Can this be fixed or can't it?"

Though it was in all CAPS and it's script had no emotion, she still felt it's patronizing tone echo in her eardrums.

_ARE YOU KIDDING ME? _Then, without her asking another question or shaking it up another time, new words took its place, surprising her.

_YOU'LL HAVE TO WAIT._

She'd known it was magic but this was like...proof. Apparently, she wasn't the only person shocked. Mara, too, hadn't seemed to be expecting that, eyes widening to almost a comical degree.

"So...that's a yes?" She summarized hopefully.

_YES IN DUE TIME._

That gave her hope like she hadn't had in a while, filling her heart with thrills and putting a wide grin on her lips, knowing that somehow, soon, this wouldn't have to be permanent. It could be fixed after all. Her situation wasn't impossible, wasn't destined, and she was not meant to have another being stuck in her mind for all of eternity.

For a second, worry swamped her. What was going to happen to Bianca? What did 'fixing'' entail for her? A new body? Going back to...wherever she was before? Dying?

In the back of her head, she felt the woman shiver. _No_, she told herself, which just happened to include Bianca. _No, if a freaking angel of destiny went through all the trouble of getting you here, and possibly exploiting my spell, then whatever the solution might be won't include you getting...dead. Again. _

But it made the girl think. If the fixing of this, the solution, didn't feature a new body, death, or divine intervention, did that mean that... they were going to fade into each other? She wondered about this for several long, agonizing moments before continuing questioning the magic 8-ball. And that, she was certain, was the weirdest thought she'd had in a long, long time.

* * *

November 16, 2021

12:41 PM

Wyatt Matthew Halliwell was one of, if not the, most powerful witches in the entire universe. Since he was only eighteen, and otherwise lived a semi-normal teenage life, this sometimes still scared him. Like now.

His breath came in ragged gasps as he took in the scene around him – the smoking remains of (a lot) of demons, the burnt cavern walls, the splintered remains of tables and chairs – and it was with rapid blinking that he slowly lowered his outstretched hands. He had all but decimated them. It hadn't even been fun, really. Wyatt ran a hand through his short hair, finding some comfort in his brother's familiar gesture. Maybe demons were evil and cruel and murderous, and deserved what he'd just done to them, but...the _way _he'd done it; he was afraid he'd enjoyed it.

It wasn't well-known, even among his family, that Wyatt's deepest darkest fear was becoming evil. He used to have nightmares of trying to kill his family. And yet, once he'd admitted it to Chris – in a low, embarrassed mutter – the nightmares stopped. It was stupid but he'd felt that as long as he had Chris by his side, he would always be on the right path – stupid because it seemed like Chris was always the one to get in trouble.

When he had orbed down to the underworld, sick of waiting and watching as his mother and aunts came up with _nothing_, waiting _again_ for Leo to return from magic school, he had felt his blood boil, his hands shake, his vision cloud in pure, concentrated fury. Someone had _dared _to mess with his little brother? Some demon thought that they could take on the _Twice Blessed One_?! They would soon learn that they had made a fatal mistake.

The demon bar, previously filled with laughs and shouts, quieted the moment he solidified. Wyatt stared on stonily, watching as the silence erupted into screams of panic. They tried to flee. No one got very far.

Now Wyatt was standing there, just as ignorant about Chris's whereabouts as before, and more lost than ever.

A sudden groan in the silence made him jerk his head up. His eyes searched the floor frantically, where, where, where...aha! A demon, his chest burnt, stirred slightly from the position of the ground. The only survivor from Wyatt's rage.

With a sigh and a heavy heart, he summoned an energy ball and strolled over, ready to put the thing out of its misery.

"N-no! Wait, d-don't kill me! I...I h-have infor...mation..." He choked out.

"About my brother? About Chris?" Wyatt clarified, the energy ball vanishing instantly. He crouched down to better hear the demon when it nodded weakly.

"Y-yes...There's b-been talk...of a demon working with...a mortal...t-to kidnap your b-brother." The demon stopped to cough, long and hard, and there was blood in his hand when he pulled it away.

"Yes, go on." Wyatt urged him. The man on the floor wasn't going to last much longer.

"He practically s-s-sold his s-soul...to get the p-plan...to work..." The demon gave a weak chuckle at his joke which turned into another coughing fit. Strangely enough, the blond felt no pity for this creature – he just rolled his eyes and sighed. What was it with demons and drama?

"Yeah, and who's the demon? Where's Chris?" He demanded impatiently. "Where did they take him?"

The demon's eyes began to take on a vacant look. It was disturbing, yet the Halliwell refused to look away.

"Would k-kill me..." The thing mumbled. "But the mortal...s-s-stupid...mortal...we laughed..."  
"Okay, who was the mortal? Just...give me a name!" He yelled. Even in death, demons were nothing but frustrating.

"B-bennett Sobil-l-lo...s-stupid..." And then his head fell to the side, and he slowly crumbled into dust. Without the usual explosion it looked unnatural, and it was all Wyatt could do to crouch there and stare for a moment.

"Weird..." He breathed. Suddenly he shook it off, remembering that he'd got information. He gave the defiled room a triumphant – and maybe kinda scary – grin.

"Mom is gonna explode."

Wyatt then vanished into thousands of tiny orbs.

* * *

**A/N**: Hello again! Has it been a month? Maybe not quite. Do you have any stinking idea how hard that spell to bind Chris's memories was to write? And I _stole half of it _from the one in Valhalley of the Dolls!

But I digress. Hope this was long enough to satisfy you for a while. Still a ways to go before...erm, _stuff_ happens, but hey! The Halliwells are catching up! Woo!

Sorry about the long Bianca/Nicole/Mara scene. Don't worry, Mara isn't my perfect OC who I love - actually, she was characterized on the spot. She probably won't appear again. Maybe once more, at most.

Thank you guys so much for sticking with my slow updating! Love you all!

Please keep reading and reviewing!

**Kokoro**


	10. Thinking Things Through

Hello! I'm really sorry that this is a whole _month _late! June seriously felt like it would go on forever. And by that I mean, it felt like I had plenty of time to finish this. As it turned out, I did not. Heh.

**Crystalzap**: *uses puppy dog eyes* I'm sorry! I didn't mean to be all offend-ful! You gotta understand that as much as I'd _love _for this fic to be perfect and incredibly well-thought out and awesome, this was just a fuzzy outline until now. I promise that once I get it completed I will go back and edit this thing, and it will probably make a _lot _more sense that way. Less plot-holes and such. I wouldn't begrudge you if you so decided to wait. ^^ Hope you aren't terribly offended and keep reviewing!

**Necromancer15; **That is so sweet! And I try (fairly) hard to keep grammar errors to a minimum. You know how, sometimes, you will be reading a fantastic story and they will misspell several simple words or misuse (_again and again_) synonyms - such as breathe when you mean breath, and you just have to say, 'No. No, I just can't read this story anymore.' It's one of my pet peeves, I think. ^^; Sorry to rant on you!Thanks again for the review! Hope you keep reading and reviewing!

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Charmed but at least I still have my villain.

* * *

As long as he didn't move, the dark was soft. Welcoming, even. It was nothing like how the light was, how shifting felt, how the slightest movement brought the most unimaginable pain. That was torture. That was slow, unending_ agony_. But as long as he stayed on the outer edges of consciousness and didn't move, the hurt was nothing more than a terrible nightmare; it was surreal.

Quite honestly, he didn't really remember why everything hurt. Why he didn't want to face reality, or turn his head, or open his eyes – it was a complete mystery. A great sense of foreboding and fear filled him when he tried to think about it, or think about anything at all, really, and that was enough to make him stop looking. He didn't need to know, anyway. The darkness was quiet and comfortable, so long as he didn't move or think or feel. What more did he need?

Actually, some sort of liquid – preferably water – would've been nice. His lips were way too dry, chapped even, as though he'd gone a while without drinking. And now that he mentioned it, his throat suddenly felt unbearably parched, his tongue thick, and there wasn't even a bit of saliva to ease his pain. It was as though some cruel person had poured a bucket of hot sand into his mouth. Swallowing felt like a harsh cough, and the cough felt like choking.

And then, relief of reliefs, his mother was there: he felt her long hair tickling his face, her delicate fingers on his cheek, her soft, familiar voice saying, "Come on, baby, I need you to drink this."

Even unconscious, Chris Halliwell would do anything for his mother. So he obeyed. He opened his mouth and swallowed.

It tasted like leaves, sulfur, and burnt pasta – one word: Wyatt – and he couldn't help but cough and wrinkle his nose up afterwards. Had he known it was that burning and disgusting, he wouldn't have drunken it!

Strangely enough, a few coughs later and his throat felt like he'd sipped the freshest, coolest glass of ice water. He swallowed again, relishing in the action now free of pain, and realized that not only did it feel better, but so did his head – he hadn't even been aware of the terrible pressure until it began to wane. A satisfied smile slowly spread across his lips, his head turning slightly for a more comfortable position, and though he was exhausted for no clear reason, he was feeling really, really great. Like he'd just had the best nap ever, or had just gotten better from the flu, chicken soup still warm in his stomach. The tips of his fingers and the ends of his toes tingled. His body teemed with energy. The only thing that wasn't ideal was the unmoving, hard, slick floor he was resting on, and even then, he felt so great it was barely an issue. All he wanted to do was to curl up and go back to sleep, tiring quickly of his semi-conscious state, and yet there was a nagging something in the back of his very weary mind.

An important nagging something. _It can't be more important than sleep_, Chris thought. His first sort-of coherent thought for a long while. No, no! He didn't want to wake up! No matter how great his body felt, his mind was tired beyond measure, as though he'd used his telekinesis powers too much or fallen asleep doing math.

Everything changed when someone kicked him in the head. Fighter's instincts, honed over years of being awoken by demons, took over his battered brain and forced him to go with the movement, to keep rolling in that direction. Before the attacker could kick him again, he dizzily jumped...er, make that _stumbled_ to his feet. The room continued to spin around as though he was still rolling; Chris fell against a wall behind him. Hey, a wall!  
It was with embarrassment that the boy conceded that, had there been no wall there, he would've fallen on his butt. Shameful but excusable, seeing as the entire room was just blobs of colors and shapes right then. No outlines, nothing discernible or familiar, no clear sign of his attacker, though the more he blinked, the more everything started to look real, and not like seeing through someone else's glasses. It was a room; dark, with concrete floors, black walls, and a curved ceiling.

Wait, scratch that. Actually, he thought, it looked more like a _cave_. Sort of. There was no dripping water, no bats or anything, and it wasn't damp, smelly, or cold like a cave. The wall he rested on was warm and smoothed – enough to make him think (for a second) that it was plaster, not stone.

It helped that someone obviously knew how to decorate. A comfy, classy purple sofa on top of a long, intricate rug, both sitting away from him in the middle of the room along with a coffee table, a vase, a few paintings lining the walls, and another table lined with chairs. The room was so large it had room for yet something else, and didn't even appear cramped – a smaller table, more like a desk, this one with various, random items on it like what appeared to be potions, a few scrolls, and some choice daggers. This was the piece of furniture closest to him, about five feet from the wall, and only three feet from where he'd been awoken on the floor. There was still no sign of his attacker. Had he dreamed it? Had he also dreamed up his mother? He glanced down at his arms to find them smooth and scarless and a sense of panic overtook him. What had actually happened? The kidnapping, the torture? Was it just some demon screwing with his head? What was real?!  
"What. The hell. Is going. On." He said through gritted teeth – really the only sane reaction at that point. The worst part? He got a reply.

"Hello, Christopher." And with two words spoken in a soft, deep tone, Chris knew it was a stranger, a demon, come to kill him. No one called him by his full name, not his teachers nor his mother, except when she was phenomenally furious with him – as opposed to her usual anger which generally just involved a admonished, 'Chris!' .

A glance up showed that a tall, blurry figure was close by – yet far enough not to scare him – leaning against...something, his long robes kinda a greenish color. He blinked, squinting to make out more details. He needed more! What sort of demon was he, what was his motive, what was he leaning against, and why did he sound happy? It was never good when demons were confident. Always led to a certain sarcastic witch-lighter's pain.

"I see you're feeling better." The orange blob of a demon said pleasantly. Chris was about to retort _no way_, since he was stiff, sore, and his head ached, before realizing that everything still felt a hundred times better than a couple hours ago. No more burning. No more agony. So yes, in fact, he _was _feeling better.

In a state of denial/mild shock at what could possibly be the first demon to genuinely _help _the son of a Halliwell, Chris found himself gaping at the blob. The day was getting to be too much for him.

"I just knew the regenerative potion would do the trick."

The teen swallowed; was he having a really long, super vivid dream? Was that what this was? 'Cause if so, his subconscious was _incredibly _messed-up.

"Did you...heal me?" He managed to get out. It barely registered in his brain that he was slowly sliding off the wall to the floor, as confused as he was.

"Of course!"

Yeah, right! Because it was everyday that a creature of the underworld healed him and dragged him to...what he could only assume was the demon's 'lair'. As lairs went, though, it wasn't that bad. No mold, for starters, and it smelled nice. Like...pine cones and air fresheners.

"I suppose you...have a reason for...um, doing that?" He was unable to admit what part the guy had played in his healing, which was all of it, to the misery of his pride, but to be fair, this was the last crazy straw on top of a day that was just too strange. Even for a Halliwell.

Finally, his vision had cleared enough to make out a (frankly, kinda scary) cocky smile on the demon's face, and at the word 'reason', it slipped into something bordering on sadistically evil.

"Yes." The word was hissed, mostly air, sounding much like a door from a sci-fi movie. Now that his sight was returning, though, Chris felt confidence, and the edges of a plan, start to grow inside him. Demons were a lot less frightening when you were feeling closer to one hundred percent than to fifty.

Then the evil gleam all but vanished in his captor/helper's eyes, and for the first time it clicked in Chris's brain what he was leaning against; the outside of a crystal cage.

"But we'll get to business soon enough. It would be rude to kill you before I introduced myself."

Chris got to his feet slowly (more like clumsily) and didn't let it deter him in the slightest.

"Look, man, I've just had the _worst _birthday in the history of birthdays – and I never do this with my mortal enemies, I swear – but I was hoping you could let me go. Just this once. Maybe come back tomorrow to kill me? It'd be really nice."

The demon threw back his head and laughed, his shaking frame causing purplish ripples throughout the magical cage. If there was anything more annoying than getting kidnapped _twice _like some damsel in distress, it was laughing villains. The Joker being the exception, of course.

The teen was forced to wait another minute of two as the chuckles died down. When they did, he couldn't help but ask,

"So I'm curious – how did you get a crystal cage, a tool used by good witches against evil, to work _against _ good witches _for _evil?"

The demon looked surprised (Chris was a little too proud that he could tell that).

"That was easy, Christopher! Do you how many witches out there are on the side of evil? How many that are just _looking _to aid in killing a good witch? A great deal of them are surprisingly clever, too."  
Chris glanced from the four _black _crystals surrounding him to the eager amber eyes of the demon.

"You used a different kind of crystal, didn't you?" He deadpanned.

"...Yes." The demon frowned.

Chris resisted the urge to sigh, and then wondered why he did so. What was his captor and would-be-murderer going to do? Kill him?

"Anyway...you were introducing yourself?"  
Chris stepped forwards with the confidence that the world was not going to spin anymore and his legs were done doing any of that girly shaky business, although he was still wary of the cage's invisible boundaries; if they were as painful as demons made them look, he definitely didn't want to touch them.

In a comically haughty motion the man straightened his collar, lifted his chin, and as the teen advanced he moved backwards. Maybe to look more impressive?

"Ah, yes." He said. "My name...is...Kellach." (1)

"Huh."

"What?" The demon self-consciously fiddled with a stray black strand near his ear.

"Nothing, nothing." Chris assured him. "I just thought somehow...your name would be cooler than that."

Though he clearly wanted to argue about his name, the demon swallowed back his retort, straightened his collar again, and pasted the less-than-reassuring grin back onto his weathered face. It made the wrinkles around his mouth and eyes all the tighter.

"No matter. Now that we're introduced, we can move on to the important part."

"The killing me part?" Chris asked, his stomach sinking.

"Well...yes. And no." Cryptic and unhelpful. But hey, he wasn't dead yet, so he was counting it as a plus.

Several heartbeats passed in utter silence.

"You know, I could get out of this cage easily if I wanted." The teen felt he had to point out. It was only fair to warn the evil creature, right?

The demon's grin grew wider and then he got this look in his eye, the one that made Chris want to groan and throw himself against the cage's walls; Chris just knew that he was going to start monologuing. Would it have been too much to ask for a simply, clean, quick kill? No talking, no prodding, poking, torturing, no back story? Huh? Was that too much to ask for?!

"I'm sure you could. Where were you planning on going from there, if I might ask?"

In usual Chris fashion, he raised an eyebrow and raised a finger to the ceiling, obviously saying, 'up'.

"I don't think so. How would you do that if you're unable to orb or contact a whitelighter?" The demon asked with a skeptic expression.

It was about that moment that Chris remembered what fear felt like. He didn't like it. Still, it had never stopped him before.

"What makes you think I can't orb?" He shot back.

"...The enchanted item I had my shapeshifter slip onto your wrist."

Instantly Chris's hand flew to his wrists, then he pulled them back as he realized that was probably what the demon wanted him to do. It was the feel of something against his skin, something he couldn't see on his dual bare wrists that made him touch them again. Something...leathery.

It took a phenomenal effort not to swallow in terror. Slowly his eyes crept up to meet the demon's once more and he knew, despite his best efforts, that his fear was reflected in them. He tried to blink them away. Then he attempted to draw the demon's attention from them with a smirk he wasn't quite feeling.

"Nice trick." He said. And it was actually a pretty good one, looking back to when he'd attempted to escape the facility with no success. "Never heard of something that affects whitelighters like that."

Well, the demon had been ever so helpful so far...Chris peered hopefully at his amber eyes. The thing did not disappoint. With a large gesture that screamed evil (….don't ask him how), Kellach held a hand to the cave's walls surrounding them, and it didn't take much for the teen to put it together.

About two-point-eight seconds, to be exact. Oh, did he forget to mention? He was a freakin' genius.

"Clever." He shook his head, this time not ashamed to admit it. "Not many people think about or know what the underworld does to whitelighters. And you figured it out? You discovered the secret _and _ you managed to turn it into an enchantment?" Dang, the guy was good.

Kellach nodded. Apparently, the guy was still in an explaining mood.

"A great part of it has to do with the evil that has dwelt here for so long. It is all but fact that demons were created here. The other part comes from the very first warlocks spelling the underworld to 'discourage angels', if I read the writing correctly. I suppose they were jealous of the Elder's ability to exclude them from the heavens, and wanted a place of their own to rule, uninterrupted.

"It took many years to recover and translate the scrolls, but it was certainly worth it. The tale itself was very amusing, the slaughter of the hundreds of angels in particular just brought tears to my eyes. And hey! If nothing else, I can sell the discovery of how to trap whitelighters to the demon community and get a fortune in revenge _and _money."

Oh, joy.

"Wow, um...So...did you go with the spell or use parts of the stone itself like...like, I dunno, whitelighter kryptonite?"

"Oh, the kryptonite definitely. With the original warlock's spell and a _few_ tinkerings on my part, of course." Kellach grinned. It was almost like they were...bantering. The seventeen year old did acknowledge that he was fascinated by this demon's surprisingly – which ought to have been _worryingly –_ thought out, well-researched, plan – er, _scheme _that looked like many years in the making. The demon seemed to have nothing but time, minions, and intelligence. If the guy wasn't planning on killing Chris, this would've been a rather cool, pleasant chat; but now it was just an imitation of politeness.

Hidden behind his back, he fiddled with the bracelet – not looking at it helped, as he could pretend it was perfectly visible and all. As far as he could, er, _feel_, it was a smooth leather embedded with rough stones, with no discernible latch or tie. It was too tight to slip off, (how the heck hadn't he noticed this before?) but he could try orbing it...dang it. He was stupid.

A knife – like the shiny ones on the desk a few feet away – would most likely do the trick. Unless...Chris's eyes flicked back to his opponent; did the evil guy have something _more _up his sleeve? There was an unnerving gleam in his eye. So...Chris would probably bet his (now most likely much shorter) lifespan on it.

Okay. Time to find out what this was all about.

The teen meandered towards the demon, ever wary of the cage's limits, and inspected the demon's eyes as deeply as possible all the while letting his own face grow harder and colder.

"Why?" He asked finally. He knew his eyes were filled with loathing, and it was sorta freeing to just _let _it happen, if only for a moment, to simply free the intense emotions he'd been bottling up. Not only over the last few days, either – over the last sixteen _years_. Only for a moment, though. And only part of them. That was all he was going to allow himself, as though he was rationing his control.

"Why would you go through all of this trouble...for me?"

All the demon did was cock his head to the side, and though Chris took it as confusion and started to elaborate, it was more likely that (the demon) was simply amused and hiding it.

"Why try to replace me with a shapeshifter? Why...tell some witch-hater scientist guy where I was that night? And binding my orbing? Letting me get tortured for a-a few days? Then, for some reason, _healing _me, then say you're going to kill me?

A-and what. The _hell_. Is up with the cupids?!"

Finally, the creature responded; he smiled.

"You connected me to the cupids." His tone was something akin to feeling touched. Chris didn't like it. As the teen appreciated little even as he took nothing for granite, the above statement was...not saying much.

"Heh. Lucky guess." The boy snapped. "Now what _the hell_ is your big plan? 'Cause, let me tell you, if you wanted me in a good mood, you're about two days – and _sixteen years_ – too late, pal."

Kellach, with his smoothed black hair hidden in an elegant ponytail and eyes the color of warm honey and hands resting comfortably in the sleeves of his green robe, gazed at him with the _smuggest_, most _arrogant_, _infuriating_ smile that Chris had ever seen in his entire life. Keep in mind that he'd been raised around Wyatt, too.

He swore on Wyatt's blond head that he was going to give this demon _pain_. Because quite honestly, Chris had had enough of it.

* * *

Have you ever had so many crazy, terrible, unrealistic things happen to you in one day that you just don't care anymore? It was like when so many bad things happened on top of each other that you become so exhausted you can't feel sad anymore, just a sort of numb horror.

This was exactly what Bianca was feeling as she walked out of the shop. She was dazed. Thrown. _Baffled._ An explanation occurred to her, one so plausible it ought to have been worrisome, yet all she did was giggle.

"Maybe I _am _crazy." She muttered. The voice in her head spoke up with a cheerful/hysterical '_No!_', but Bianca didn't find it reassuring.

Her feet stumbled along the old, cracked sidewalk that wandered away from the shop and she let them, choosing to muse rather than to get anyplace. Sometimes the only way to get over things, or in this case accept things, was to think on them. For a long while. A _long_, long while.

Thoughts were fickle things – soon enough they drifted from her ever-increasing set of problems to problems of a different sort. She began to think on Chris. A dangerous topic to be sure, one even more so in her distracted state, and what she chose to think on wasn't helping.

The first time they'd met...the memory was blurry, not with forgetfulness – but with pain. It was on a particularly bad day that the rebel leader had run across her.

A blunt personality, low but unyielding morals, and a habit for bitting off more than she could chew had – on that day – gotten her impaled with a pole. Oh, how she _hated _poles. So long, so agonizing, so _not meant _to pierce your stomach all the way through.

Hopelessness had set in. Fear, agony, the remembrance that her mother was dead, that no one would mourn her loss. Not many mourned then, anyway. Dead bodies were usually just...dead weight. There were worse things to die over.

Sobs had broken out like a rash and infected her body, her heart, her soul, only serving to worsen the pain, and then...

Then she'd looked up, up, up... Into eyes the color of gleaming olives or maybe brilliant green fish, practically swimming with determination. His lips had curled up in a cruel imitation of a smile. All she'd done was stare, a sob hitching in her throat, and wondered if he was there to put her out of her misery. There'd been nothing she could do to stop him and frankly, she wasn't sure if she wanted to; so she'd waited.

The man had crouched down beside her and scanned the beam in her midsection, the half-smile stuck on his face like it was frozen there. Then he'd noted the phoenix symbol on her wrist – she'd watched as his eyes widened, though he had not touched her.

It wasn't as though she could've stopped him.

Finally, the smile had blossomed into an arrogant, I'm-better-than-you-because-I-don't-have-a-steel-c able-in-my-torso smirk, and he'd offered her his hand in the least aggressive way possible.

"Hey. Need a hand there?"

She recalled gasping for breath – the pipe was really in the way for that breathing stuff – and glaring at him.

"Witch." She had hissed, recognizing the self-righteous walk of one, someone on the side of 'good'. Really, she should've saved her breath. So wasteful. "I don't need...h-help." No – she'd needed a miracle.

The man had raised his eyebrow at her, sat back on his heels, and retracted the hand she had wanted to spit on.

"Well, _demon_-witch," He'd said, emphasizing the 'demon'. "I just thought you might like to be healed. You know, before you bleed out?"  
Ah. Dying had sounded so nice until he'd phrased it like that.  
"Shut...up.." She gasped. Surely there was someone else in this battlefield of dead/dying creatures that he could bother? Hadn't her life been painful enough without a pestering witch taunting her death?

"Why...are you...here..." It was a pathetic wheeze, unable to display any of her usual venom. Quite frankly, it was the sad sound of a dying woman and that was probably the reason his smirk was beginning to fade. Into something...blank. Unreadable. Which just meant that Chris was getting upset and couldn't show it, although there was no way to know that at the time.

"I'm here to help. I've heard of you, seen you around. You fight for some stupid things, you know." He studied her face. Any disturbing feelings of fear that he might have stalked her were dwarfed instantly by the pipe, of course, so instead of cowering like a child she tried to laugh. Couldn't quite manage it.

"I know what you did back there. I know that you do everything you can to rebel against Wyatt."  
Oh. Then he was one of _them_ – a witch working for the Overlord. Come to see one of his master's only rebels die, most likely. Though this had been the wrong assumption, with her condition it hadn't really mattered.

His next words struck a little too close to her heart;

"And I know that what you do is not nearly enough."

On her deathbed, nothing to lose, pain shuddering through her very veins, she figured that this was the one time to admit it.

"I...wa...a cowar..." She wheezed. "Couldn't...do it...to 'is fa..ce..."

The man's face was impassive.

"I know."

The cloudless sky and wretched world darkened as her eyelids fluttered dangerously. Too tired to care, she looked up at the man with tears in her eyes and a childish tone to her words. Any remaining resistance crumbled under the weight of the situation. She was on death's door. Pride was so stupid then. And now. The world was a big stupid, idiotic, unfair place filled with struggles and pain and death and horrors and heartbreak and...she didn't wanted to leave it.  
"...H-hel...p...m...?" She croaked. It was meant to be a strong demand; yet it came out as nothing more than a weak plea. He could've said no – he could've walked away. Chris Halliwell had stayed by her side though, and that was why she would always love him.

"I thought you'd never ask." He replied. Soon his hands were glowing gold and she'd felt like...she'd felt at peace. Home, loved, cared for, embraced. This was an emotion she had never experienced since that very day.

Reliving the first memory of Chris, she felt a tirade of 'if's rising up – and those were never good to dwell on. What if he hadn't found her? What if he hadn't healed her? What if she hadn't asked? If she hadn't agreed to join the rebellion? If she hadn't risked everything (which wasn't that much) to be one of the only ones to defy Wyatt _while in his service_?

Their meeting had been unlikely at best, coincidental, perhaps even fated if you were the sort to believe that Destiny was interested in that. But... if finding each other the first time had been a one-in-a-million chance, how much harder would it be to locate one another again in this messed up, strangely perfect-ish backwards world?

A-and their relationship hadn't even worked last time! Nothing had strictly been admitted, but Bianca had messed up big time. Chris knew that – _had _known that. Knew it once.

She had given up on their cause, deemed it impossible, and put her wellbeing – her wish for a quiet, unrebellious life with Chris – above the mission.

It was a shame she'd forgotten that to Chris, the 'mission' _was_ his life. To that infuriating man, beating – or saving, as he liked to put it – his brother, making sure his family lived, and fixing the apocalyptic world they called home had been his entire life, the thing he'd strived at for...well, some days it felt like lifetimes. Nothing mattered beyond it. Not his life, not his cousins' lives, not...not even hers. Perhaps some part of her had hoped that a marriage with her would've been an adequate alternative to the mission but...No.

No.

The demon-half of Bianca was darkened with rage, even as she understood everything (perfectly) and would make him do it again if the chance arose, because, well; she'd died by Wyatt's hands and Chris hadn't killed him.  
There wasn't any proof. The assassin-witch would probably never know for certain what took place after her death, yet she knew Wyatt and she knew Chris. A dark part of her hated both brothers. Some strange piece _loathed _them, so deeply and so strongly and filled with such rough passion she could see what people meant when they said love and hate were almost the same thing.

Simple fact; she and Chris had loved each other. Maybe they would always love each other, maybe they were destined, maybe they weren't. That wasn't the point. It would never be the point.

The point was this:

Wyatt and Chris were unavoidably, inexplicably, _unfathomably_ tied together by the string of Destiny and no matter how much they grew up, or moved out and got married and had kids (Bianca's chest tightened at the thought of Chris having children with someone else) the two would always be close. Best friends, really.

The brothers would always be there for each other, to love and protect themselves, and they would always be a bit obsessed with each other.

What? It was a simple truth. It might not have been strictly healthy or normal or anything, but that was what it was. They were family and Halliwell's took that seriously.

The witch half-heartedly wished her mother took family a quarter as seriously. Maybe then she'd be there for her.

Shaking her head, she struggled to bring herself back to reality, telling herself that her mother was a topic for another day, when she had the time, inclination, couch and an extremely patient shrink.

For a rather odd moment, Bianca suddenly wanted to be back in the shop with the crazy woman, Mana or whatever.

_Mara. _The other big problem in her life, besides Chris and emotions and junk, spoke up. _And insanity is relative at this point. _

That Bianca was forced to concede. She just wanted somebody to talk to. Someone...not inside her head. A person who would listen without judgment to all of her problems – just a sentient being who she could talk all of this out to. They wouldn't even have to respond or comment or offer up advice or anything! Just...someone not a wall. Or a tree. Or Nicole.

_Hey! I am offended. _

With a half-smile, Bianca stretched her hands towards the sun, loving the feel of it on her face.

"Have you ever looked so close to something that you can't tell what it is anymore?" She said out-loud. See, now if a person were there, the girl wouldn't feel like trying to work everything out was making her even _more _crazy.

_So you're saying I'm too close to to this thing to be of any help? _The tone was rife with childish annoyance. Again, Bianca thought it was funny how that worked since there wasn't exactly space in her head for an echo or a legible tone.

Picking up the irritation, the demon pointed to her brain.

"You're in my head." She deadpanned. "I can't think of any possible way for you to be any closer to me."

_Yes, yes, b-but sometimes it's looking closely at substances that reveals all the answers! Microscopes are the perfect example! _

"I'm not – _we're _not some bacteria, School-girl!" She growled.

_No! We're not! I, you, _we _are some sort of magical, half-demon-witch, half-human, hybrid thingy with a past life stuck in her, our head recently, something that my knowledgeable friend says is freakin' impossible! We are an experiment waiting to happen in the human world, a-and a freak in the magical one! A-a-a-and now we are an impossibility there, too! _

"So? We're weird. I already knew that, idiot."

_Yeah, well, I'm a high schooler. I was already struggling to fit in, a-and we sort of...tend to obsess about this 'being a freak' stuff._

"Sucks to be you." Bianca replied. It would've been funnier if that statement hadn't nicely summed her entire existence. Realizing this, her shoulders slumped and she sighed as she slipped into a funk.

When she finally lifted her head again, it occurred to her brilliant split-level head that she had no idea where she was. The neighborhood next to her – old from the side-walk cracks, probably from the long tree roots – was as unfamiliarly _not _demolished as the road, and the gas station across the way.

Anticipating Nicole's comment, she said,

"Not. Lost."

_I didn't say anything. _

"Good. Keep it that way."

Bianca stared at the generic street sign; Blackwood and Stony Chestnut. They both meant an equal amount of nothing to her.  
"We could shimmer somewhere." She pointed out.

_Where would we go? Home? We aren't going to find anymore answers there than here, Bianca. _

"Yeah, yeah. I know that." The teen grumbled, tugging anxiously – a trait she'd gotten from Nicole – on a lock of hair.

"However...we could try the Underworld." At her suggestion, she felt fear stirring in the back of her shared mind; a fear that wasn't hers. Oh, right. Nicole's experience (for lack of a better word) of the Underworld was...very limited. Practically none. It made her think of the odd example of a homeschooled demon, and that image brought up a nice giggle. It was good to laugh.

_I saw that. _Was the surly response from the schoolgirl. _It's not funny. The Underworld is really freaky, Bianca! I mean, I've seen your memories, too, and most people want to kill us down there! If not that, then they want to give us a bounty, or...erm...kiss... us._

Another laugh bubbled up, this one more shameless and dark.

"Oh, trust me – they wanna do a lot more than kiss."  
The color red flooded her mind. It was so strong her cheeks quickly began flushed, even though Bianca was too experienced, too brazen to feel embarrassed about the particularly intimate side of evil.

"Oh, come on. Don't tell me you've never thought about demons doing the dirty." She teased.

_T-that's just plan wrong! _

"Well, what can I say, we're a sick kind of people." But she laughed still. It was weird that in the midst of all one million of her problems and emotional issues, she felt better knowing Nicole was there, even if that girl_ made up_ most of her problems. It was...nice, somehow – not being all alone.

Huh. Weird.

* * *

(1) Okay, you have no idea how much time I spend trying to find a name for our villain. Seriously. I went into this story with no name for him and I scrambled to find one like, yesterday - and yes, Kellach was the best I could come up with. The 'official' pronunciation is ke-la(ch), but I've been saying it in my head as ke-la(k) with a 'ck' sound at the end. However you wanna say it, I don't care.

Sorry for this being kinda short. More stuff with happen next chapter, promise.

I don't particularly mind any good/bad feelings you have towards Kellach. Fun fact: any character I write for suddenly becomes my favorite, but I'm trying really hard here not to become attached. Please review and tell me what you think of him!


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